The Changing Japanese Family
The Japanese family is shifting in fundamental ways, demographically and in terms of attitudes towards family and societal relationships and the role of family in society. These changes include an ageing population, delayed marriages, a birth rate which has fallen below the level needed for replacement, a decline in three-generational households, a rise in single men and women who continue to live with their parents and a decline in family businesses. This book explores the causes and consequences of the demographic transition, the changing shape and definition of the family, the shifting boundaries between the family and community and the changing role of the state. It provides overviews of the role of the labour market and the social welfare systems, as well as case studies of the ‘training’ of mothers by the community and the growing awareness of child abuse. The shifting gender balance is considered through studies on language use and Japanese fatherhood. These issues are set in an international context, including comparisons with southern Europe, where similar changes to the family and its role are occurring. Overall, this book presents a thorough examination of the changing nature of a key social institution and will be of interest to anyone interested in contemporary Japan. Marcus Rebick is University Lecturer on the Japanese Economy at Oxford University and a fellow of St Antony’s College. His research interests include labour economics, the Japanese economy, the economics of ageing and the economics of higher education. Ayumi Takenaka is Assistant Professor of Sociology at Bryn Mawr College. Her areas of research interest include immigration, ethnic and racial identities, social inequality and mobility and comparative demography.
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The Changing Japanese Family Edited by Marcus Rebick and Ayumi Takenaka
The Changing Japanese Family
Edited by Marcus Rebick and Ayumi Takenaka
First published 2006 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada by Routledge 270 Madison Ave, New York, NY 10016 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2006 Editorial selection and matter, Marcus Rebick and Ayumi Takenaka; individual chapters, the contributors
This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2006. “To purchase your own copy of this or any of Taylor & Francis or Routledge’s collection of thousands of eBooks please go to www.eBookstore.tandf.co.uk.” All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data A catalog record for this book has been requested ISBN10: 0–415–36808–1 (hbk) ISBN10: 0–203–02782–5 (ebk) ISBN13: 978–0–415–36808–7 (hbk) ISBN13: 978–0–203–02782–0 (ebk)
Contents
List of figures List of tables List of contributors Editors’ preface Acknowledgements
vii ix xi xiii xv
PART I
Introduction 1 The changing Japanese family
1 3
MARCUS REBICK AND AYUMI TAKENAKA
PART II
The demographic transition 2 Demographics of the Japanese family: entering uncharted territory
17
19
NAOHIRO OGAWA, ROBERT D. RETHERFORD AND RIKIYA MATSUKURA
3 Japanese youth’s attitudes towards marriage and child rearing
39
NOBUKO NAGASE
4 Strong in tradition and yet innovative: the puzzles of the Italian family FRANCESCA BETTIO
54
vi
Contents
PART III
The shifting gender balance 5 Changes in the workplace and their impact on the family
73
75
MARCUS REBICK
6 The emergence of ‘nurturing fathers’: discourses and practices of fatherhood in contemporary Japan
94
AYAMI NAKATANI
7 Changing language, gender and family relations in Japan
109
TESSA CARROLL
PART IV
Shifts in the boundaries of the family 8 Mother-rearing: the social world of mothers in a Japanese suburb
127 129
AYUMI SASAGAWA
9 Policing the Japanese family: child abuse, domestic violence and the changing role of the state
147
ROGER GOODMAN
10 Changing families and policy responses to an ageing Japanese society
161
MISA IZUHARA
11 Different paths to welfare: family transformations, the production of welfare, and future prospects for social care in Italy and Japan
177
ROSSANA TRIFILETTI
Index
205
Figures
1.1 Percentage of population over age 65, selected OECD countries 2.1 Living arrangements of elderly persons aged 60 and above in selected countries in 2001 2.2 Change in average age of death among fifty oldest persons in Japan, 1950–2002 2.3 Actual values and values predicted by the Lee-Carter model 2.4 Projected life expectancy at birth for Japanese men and women, 2000–2025 2.5 Trends in period parity progression ratios in Japan, 1950–2000 2.6 Compositional change in married Japanese women by the number of children they have, selected years 2.7 Trend in the proportion of marriages that are arranged, the proportion of newly married couples who coresided with parents at the time of marriage and the proportion of husbands who were eldest sons, Japan, 1955–1998 2.8 Familial support ratio by prefecture, 1975 and 2025 2.9 Trends in norms and expectations about care for the elderly, Japan, 1950–2004 3.1 Percentage of never-married Japanese in their late twenties and thirties 3.2 Work status of married women with a child or children 3.3 Percentage of users of child-care leave 4.1 Period fertility and female employment rate in EU countries, 2003 4.2 Multidimensional scaling of EU countries 4.3 Adult children living with their parents, by age, 2001 5.1 Self-employed and family workers as a percentage of those working 5.2 Trends in the gender-based pay differential for full-time workers
6 20 21 22 23 25 26
28 33 35 40 41 42 55 60 62 77 86
viii
Figures
10.1 Number of persons in household (all ages) 10.2 Type of households among those aged 65 and above 10.3 The preferred place to receive care among those aged 65 and above, by household type
163 164 169
Tables
2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4
3.1 3.2 4.1 4.2 4.3 5.1
5.2 5.3 11.1 11.2 11.3
The effect of coresidence among the elderly aged 65 and above on their place of death, Japan, 1990, 1995 and 2000 International comparison of the projected familial support ratio in 2005 International comparison of the speed of population ageing International comparison of the projected proportion of those aged 75 and above in those aged 65 and above for selected industrialized nations in 2025 Sample statistics for interviewed subjects Characteristics of women interviewed Fertility and women’s labour market participation in Europe, Japan and the United States Demographic indicators for EU countries, 2001–2003 Characteristics of population in age group 20–34 – ECHP sample for Italy (2001) Transition matrix for Japanese workers who changed jobs or stopped working between October 1997 and July 2002 The correlation of part-time work and unpaid family work for Japanese married women, 1992 and 1997 Percentage of management posts held by women in Japan Timing of elderly and child-care measures in Italy and Japan Timing of population ageing in Italy and Japan Timing of the fall in fertility in Italy and Japan
30 32 34
34 43 44 56 58 63
79 80 85 188 190 192
Contributors
Francesca Bettio teaches at the University of Siena, Italy. She is an economist by training, with a PhD from the University of Cambridge, UK. Her main areas of expertise are labour and population economics as well as gender economics. Tessa Carroll was a lecturer in Japanese Studies at the University of Stirling until August 2005. Her research interests lie in various aspects of language planning and language change in Japan. Roger Goodman is Nissan Professor of Modern Japanese Studies at the University of Oxford. His recent publications that relate most directly to his contribution to this volume include Children of the Japanese State (OUP) and Family and Social Policy in Japan (CUP). Misa Izuhara is Research Fellow in the School for Policy Studies, University of Bristol. She works in the areas of housing and social change, ageing and social policy. Her publications include Comparing Social Policies: Exploring New Perspectives in Britain and Japan. Rikiya Matsukura is a lecturer at the Nihon University Population Research Institute in Tokyo. Her research interests include marriage and fertility in Japan. Nobuko Nagase is an associate professor in the Graduate School of Humanities and Sciences at Ochanomizu University in Tokyo. Much of her work focuses on the analysis of patterns of labour supply behaviour of Japanese women, child-care support programmes and social policy. Ayami Nakatani is currently an associate professor in the Graduate School of Humanities and Social Sciences at Okayama University in Tokyo. A social anthropologist, her research concerns include the formation of the ‘modern family’ in Southeast Asia. Naohiro Ogawa is Deputy Director and Professor at the Nihon University Population Research Institute in Tokyo. His most recent work has been on fertility, ageing and health in Japan.
xii
Contributors
Marcus Rebick is a lecturer on the Japanese economy at the University of Oxford and a fellow of St Antony’s College. His research is on the labour market and its institutions in Japan. He has recently published The Japanese Employment System: Adapting to a New Economic Environment (OUP). Robert D. Retherford is the coordinator of Population and Health Studies at the East–West Center in Honolulu, Hawaii. His research has been concerned with family and health issues in Japan, Nepal and India. Ayumi Sasagawa is a part-time lecturer at Musashino University and Aoyama Gakuin University. She has a PhD in Anthropology from Oxford Brookes University. Ayumi Takenaka is Assistant Professor of Sociology at Bryn Mawr College. Her areas of research interest include immigration, ethnic and racial identities, social inequality and mobility and comparative demography. She has conducted field research in Japan, Peru, the United States, Mexico and the United Kingdom. Rossana Trifiletti is Associate Professor in Social Policy and Sociology of the Family at Florence University. Her research interests are in qualitative sociology of the family, social policies, gender issues, women’s work, qualitative methods in comparative research and the history of sociological thought.
Editors’ preface
Japan, between the mid-1950s and the mid-1980s, was a relatively stable society with a booming economy and uninterrupted one-party rule. Since the mid-1980s, however, with the bubble of 1988–1990 and its collapse, it appears that there have been many changes. At least, there has been much public discourse about changes. In the mid-1990s, the Liberal Democratic Party lost power for the first time since 1955. The economy entered a prolonged slump from which it may be only just emerging. Demographically, the population is ageing at a very rapid rate. There also appear to be changes in society, most notably in the position of women and the rising age of marriage. This book developed from a conference held at St Antony’s College, Oxford, in November 2002. The editors organized a conference to look at the changes taking place in the Japanese family during a period in which other aspects of Japanese society appear to be changing rapidly. We believe that it is difficult to understand many of the other changes that are taking place in Japan without some sense of what is happening in families. We recognized from the start that many of the changes taking place in Japan, such as the ageing of the population and declining birth rates, are found in other industrialized countries. For this reason, we decided that a comparative perspective would be useful. We decided that Italy, a country that also has low fertility, rapid population ageing, few out-of-wedlock births, a large sector of small family-run enterprises and, until the 1990s, one-party dominance by the Christian Democrats, would make for an interesting and useful comparison. During the conference, one of the themes that kept emerging in discussion was how the boundaries of the family have been shifting – through new patterns of co-habitation, through the involvement of the state and the community – and how the definition of the family itself seems to have evolved. After inviting a couple of additional contributions, we have organized this book loosely around this theme. Through a comparison with Italy, we learned that many of the demographic and familial changes that have taken place in Japan are far from unique. We hope that the case studies presented in this volume will offer insights for other countries currently undergoing, or about to undergo, similar changes.
Acknowledgements
The editors are grateful to all those individuals and organizations that helped us organize a successful conference, on which this volume is based. The Asian Studies Centre of St Antony’s College, the Nissan Institute of Japanese Studies, the Oxford University Astor Travel Fund and the Oxford University Sasagawa Fund provided financial support. Ann Buchanan, Rosa Fernandez, Eirini Flouri, Nanette Gottlieb, Joy Hendry, Heather Joshi, Mike Murphy, Lidia Sciama, Theresa Smith, Nobue Suzuki, Yoshimi Umeda and Bruce White contributed to the conference by participating and providing useful feedback. The editors would also like to thank the following for permission to reproduce published material: the Nihon University Population Research Institute (Figure 2.5); The Population and Development Review (Figure 2.7); Oxford University Press (Tables 5.2 and 5.3). Finally, we gratefully acknowledge the assistance of Jennifer Griffiths, the secretary of the Asian Studies Centre, who helped with the conference and the preparation of the manuscript. Japanese names in this book are given in Western order (surname last), except in quoted material.
Part I
Introduction
1
The changing Japanese family Marcus Rebick and Ayumi Takenaka
The 1990s saw major changes in the way in which the Japanese think and talk about themselves. One area where this is manifest is in discourses about the family. The family is in ‘transition’ (Imamura 1990; Ochiai 1997); it is in ‘crisis’, (Hayashi 2002); and other times, it is simply described as becoming more diverse in its forms and definitions. In contrast to an idealized nuclear or extended family, there are many more families today (White 2002). There are so many types of families that they could even be described as ‘individual networks’ (Fukushima 2002). How has the family changed, or remained unchanged, and why? To what extent is this unique to Japan? And what implications does it have for Japan as well as other industrial societies? In the context of economic slowdown and major demographic shifts in the 1990s, the Japanese family has undergone a number of significant changes. The marriage rate has fallen, while the divorce rate has risen. The patterns of cohabitation of members of the extended family have also shifted with the decrease in ‘traditional’ three-generation households and with the increase in the number of young men and women who continue to stay single and live with their parents. Meanwhile, the mean age of first marriage has climbed to the world’s highest level, and fertility has fallen to a level well below replacement. Japan is the most rapidly ageing society in the world, and the population is projected to decline after 2006. This rapid ageing of the population will necessarily imply great change in intergenerational relations, as there will be far fewer young to look after the old. It will also have significant ramifications for the nation’s social welfare and labour market. These issues are at the heart of public debates in Japanese society today. Rapid social transformation accompanied by population ageing, plummeting fertility rates and diversified definitions of the family are, indeed, common among many industrial countries. Italy, in particular, faces similar problems and has many characteristics that invite comparison with Japan. Both countries have low divorce rates and low rates of birth outside marriage. In both countries, children tend to live with their families until marriage. Both countries have an industrial structure characterized by many small firms and family-run enterprises. Both countries experienced defeat in the Second World War but recovered with rapid economic growth in the 1950s and 1960s. This is part of the reason why both countries have had rapid demographic transitions to low fertility in the early
4 Marcus Rebick and Ayumi Takenaka post-war period, leading to an ageing population structure in the early twenty-first century. Both countries also began to receive growing numbers of immigrants (foreign migrants) in recent decades. (As of 2002, 2.0 million and 1.5 million foreign residents were registered in Japan and Italy, making up 1.6 per cent and 2.6 per cent of the nations’ populations, respectively SOPEMI 2004).1 These numbers, however, remain fairly small in comparison to other industrial countries, although immigration is increasingly seen as a way to ‘substitute’ for the decreasing and ageing populations (United Nations, Population Division 2000). Moreover, both countries appear to have similar approaches to the provision of social welfare. Esping-Andersen (1990) places Japan in a corporatist/conservative group along with Italy in his scheme of ‘three worlds of welfare capitalism’. In this view, Japan, along with Italy, is typical of countries that are ‘strongly committed to the preservation of traditional familyhood . . . (t)he state will only interfere when the family’s capacity to service its members is exhausted’ (ibid.: 27). Using Italy for a comparison, we come to see that the changes occurring in Japan are representative of a pattern common to other countries, especially those of Southern Europe, rather than an aberration based on ‘unique’ features of Japanese society. This volume examines the changes that are taking place in the Japanese family comparatively by looking at broader social, economic and global contexts. We begin by looking at the demographic changes including the rising age of marriage, declining birth rate and ageing of the population and their effect on social welfare arrangements in Japan. It is no longer considered desirable or even feasible to leave the care of children or the elderly entirely to the family. The demographic change is also compared to similar trends in the south European countries. The next part of the book looks at the gender balance of labour and responsibility both within the household and at work, including the way in which the Japanese language reflects these shifts in the gender balance. The third and final part of the book explores the changing definition and function of the family. There has been a shift in the boundaries between family and community and between family and state, and the role of the state in the provision of social welfare has increased. Here, we also find a useful comparison with developments in Italy. Before beginning our discussion, we would like to clarify some of the terms that we will be using in this introduction. The term setai refers to a household, officially defined in Japan as a group of people sharing a kitchen. The term ie, usually rendered in English as ‘stem family’, refers to a family lineage with a (theoretically) eternal existence, stretching from the distant past into the future. The ie, which was institutionalized in the Meiji period in an attempt to modernize the nation’s family system, is preserved through patrilineal links between generations. Typically the eldest son inherits responsibility for the ie, taking over as its head. All of his siblings will either marry out of the ie (in the case of women) or move out (in the case of younger brothers). Reinforced by a patriarchal head and hierarchy by birth, the ie system maintained a strict gender-based role division within the family and household. What makes the Japanese ie distinctive, however, is the widespread use of adoption whenever the survival of the ie is at stake. If there are no sons, or if none
The changing Japanese family 5 of the sons is suitable to be an heir, the husband of a daughter may be adopted to become the new head of the ie. If there are no children at all, then a son may still be adopted. An important feature of this system, therefore, is the continuity of the ie, or family line, rather than an emphasis on blood relations. Japanese law, since the beginning of the Meiji period, has underpinned this system by stipulating that all Japanese belong to the ie (thus, non-Japanese residents do not belong to one), as reflected in the population registration system. Known as koseki, this registration system ensures that all married couples and their children share a surname as a family unit. The vast majority of the time, women change their names in marrying or moving into their husbands’ registries. Finally, the term kazoku is typically translated as family and broadly understood as blood-related kin and conjugal relationships, while katei, or ‘home’, broadly refers to the ‘family domain’ or a place where kazoku shares a communal life. Kazoku is the most amorphous and the hardest to define, and some use the term to refer to people’s sense of family, or family identity (Ueno 1994). Murdock (1949) defined the family as ‘a social group characterized by common residence, economic cooperation, and reproduction’. The family, since then, has diverged so much in its functions, types, and meanings, and it is difficult to define it simply by these characteristics (Tsumura 2002). It may be more useful to think of ‘the family’ in terms of boundaries. Boundaries are shifting for all these – the concepts of setai, ie, kazoku and katei. Before we discuss these shifts, we must look more closely at the demographic and socio-economic changes that are taking place, and how they are related to the state of the family.
Japan’s demographic transition Ageing Japan, followed by Italy, is the most rapidly ageing society in the world. Figure 1.1 shows trends in the proportion of the population over the age of sixty-five over time in comparison with some other OECD countries to illustrate this point. In 1950, the proportion of the population aged 65 and over represented only 5 per cent of Japan’s population; by 1997, this rate increased to 15 per cent, surpassing the proportion of children under 15, and increased further to 20 per cent by 2005. The proportion of the elderly over 65 years of age is projected to increase further to 22.5 per cent in 2010 and 30 per cent in 2030 (CAO Cabinet Office 2004a). The causes of this phenomenon are well known and reviewed by Ogawa et al. in this volume. Japan moved through what is usually called the ‘first demographic transition’ rapidly in the late 1940s and early 1950s, with the total fertility rate (the number of children born on average to each woman over her lifetime) dropping from 4.54 in 1947 to 2.04 in 1957 (MHLW1 2004). At the same time, neo-natal mortality rates dropped due to better health care and nutrition. There is nothing exceptional about this pattern, common to all economically developed societies, but its rapidity has resulted in the rapid ageing of the population that we see today. The other factor that has been important is the great increase in longevity of the
6
Marcus Rebick and Ayumi Takenaka 30.0
Germany Japan Italy UK US OECD Total
25.0
20.0
15.0
10.0 1990
1995
2000
2005 Year
2010
2015
2020
Figure 1.1 Percentage of population over age 65, selected OECD countries. Source: United Nations, Population Database.
Japanese population. In 2003, Japan had the highest life expectancy in the world, at 78.4 for men and 85 for women (Statistics Bureau 2004). Life expectancy has increased consistently over the period since the Second World War, rising by nearly 30 years since 1947, but half of this rise occurred in the 13 years up to 1960. In the years since 1960, life expectancy rose more gradually, but this is the period in which Japan overtook other developed countries. Cohabitation patterns Along with ageing, Ogawa et al. (Chapter 2, this volume) point out that the patterns of cohabitation have shifted with the decrease in three-generation households, both in terms of absolute numbers and share of all households. In 1975, three-generational households represented 18 per cent of all households, but the percentage decreased gradually to 10 per cent in 2002, while the share of single-member households increased, from 18 per cent in 1975 to 23 per cent in 2002 (MHLW1 2004). Elderly households, made up of members over 65 years of age, also grew in numbers, constituting 15.8 per cent of all households in 2003. Overall, the average number of household members steadily decreased, from 5 in 1950 to 2.5 in 2004 (ibid.). The meaning of cohabitation, however, brings us to another of the ways in which the boundaries of the family have become blurred. In recent years, many families have resolved the difficult problem of care for the elderly by developing arrangements where the older generation lives next to the younger ‘nuclear’ household, but not directly with it. One example of this may be seen in cases where property is subdivided and the younger family lives in a separate house next door. Another arrangement is to have the house itself subdivided with
The changing Japanese family 7 a separate apartment for the older generation to live in (Brown 2003). Bettio (Chapter 4, this volume) reports a similar trend in Italy where many grown-ups continue to live near their parents after moving out of their parental homes. At the same time, living nearby does not automatically translate into close family relationships; Japanese children, who live with, or near, their parents more frequently than American and Swedes, for instance, reportedly maintain less frequent contact with their parents (Inoue and Ebara 2005). While these arrangements may not technically be defined as cohabitation, it would be difficult to classify them as completely separate households. A question that arises is how to define a household (setai), or how to classify a variety of arrangements, including the cases where different generations live in close proximity in the same city, rather than separated by great distances. From a policy viewpoint, it is important that statistics reflect this variety as much as possible, taking into account the blurring of what in the past may have been seen as a clear distinction. Falling fertility Another significant demographic shift over the last ten years has been the decline of the fertility rate to levels well below replacement level. In 2004, for example, it is estimated that the total fertility rate stood at 1.29 whereas the level needed for maintenance of the population is 2.1 (MHLW2 2005). Although the decline in fertility first became a major issue in the 1990s, the actual decline from replacement levels began in 1973 and has continued steadily ever since. This decline in fertility is usually distinguished from the earlier decline as there was a period of stable fertility from the mid-1950s to the early 1970s. The earlier decline was caused by the new availability of contraceptives (mainly condoms) and the legalization and provision of abortion. At the same time, falling levels of infant and child mortality would have meant that families needed fewer children to be sure of reaching a desired family size. The more recent decline of the last thirty years, sometimes referred to as the ‘second demographic transition’, is largely attributed to improved employment opportunities (including higher wages) for women, along with the rapid growth in the educational attainment of women. In 1970, the average woman aged 25–29 working full-time as a regular worker earned only 62 per cent of what her male counterpart earned.2 By 1999, she was earning 83 per cent.3 The percentage of managerial posts held by women tripled between 1982 and 2003 (Rebick, Chapter 5, this volume). In 1970, 18 per cent of high-school graduate women were going on to higher education, and most were headed to two-year colleges. In 2003, 47 per cent were headed to higher education (compared to 42.7 per cent of men), and almost two-thirds of these went to four-year universities (MOE 2004).4 The declining fertility rate is also due to perceived difficulty in raising children, particularly by working mothers. As Nagase (Chapter 3, this volume) points out, many women perceive that it is difficult to balance work and childrearing, and this is, in part, attributable to a perception of inadequate childcare facilities and high costs associated with childcare (CAO Cabinet Office 2001a).
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Marcus Rebick and Ayumi Takenaka
Consequently, the ideal number of children (2.62 in 1982 and 2.56 in 2002) far exceeds the number of children women actually have (Inoue and Ebara 2005). Declining marriage rate, delayed marriages Rising aspirations and the rising opportunity cost of marriage have led to an increasing average age of (first) marriage – 29.6 for men and 27.8 for women (MHLW2 2005) – which is associated with a drop in the number of children born within marriages. (Out of wedlock births remain very low in Japan, at 1.9 per cent of all births in 2002, compared to 11 per cent in Italy, 56 per cent in Sweden, 41 per cent in the United Kingdom and 34 per cent in the United States. (Bettio, Chapter 4, this volume; Martin et al. 2003). They have also led to a dramatic rise in the proportion of women who never marry (Ogawa et al. Chapter 2, this volume). On average, the drop in the number of children within marriage and the rise in the proportion of women who never marry have contributed about equally to the decline in fertility (Retherford et al. 1996). Much of the decline in the numbers born within marriage can be attributed to the increasing age of first marriage. There are a number of plausible explanations for these trends explored in the chapters by Ogawa et al. and Nagase. One is that women continue to have difficulty balancing a career with a family. As Nagase shows, there is a tendency for young working women to put off marriage or having children because they believe that once they start a family, they will either need or want to devote all of their time to raising children. Indeed, a 1997 survey by the Cabinet Office shows that women consider ‘loss of freedom’ as the major opportunity cost associated with marriage. Even though the government is encouraging firms to become more family friendly and has mandated maternity leave, this has not had much effect in practice (Sato 2000). Also, many women now increasingly view marriage, even with a financially secure partner, as an unattractive prospect. This is, in part, attributable to the gender division of labour so prominent in post-war Japan. While men have assumed responsibility for the majority of the earnings, the role of women has been relegated to household chores and childcare. As Rebick (Chapter 5, this volume) shows, men continue to engage in long hours of work, despite the recent decline in the official number of working hours. The men also spend many hours socializing with work colleagues after working hours. One well-publicized survey reports that for households with young children, men spend, on average, as little as 5 minutes per day on housework (compared to 3–4 hours for full-time working women) and less than half an hour on childcare (versus over 4 hours on average for women) (CAO Cabinet Office 2001b: table 10). Moreover, the type of housework men actually engage in is different from that of women, as described by Nakatani (Chapter 6, this volume): fathers’ housework typically includes ‘playing with children’, ‘bathing children’ and ‘shopping on Sundays’, while relatively few fathers prepare meals or change diapers (Inoue and Ebara 2005; Yuzawa 2003). Whether or not these figures (obtained in a household survey where women were the primary respondents) are true, women continue to bear the primary responsibility for raising a family. Moreover, while women are often left with the full burden of childcare, they are also responsible for
The changing Japanese family 9 the care of their elderly parents or their spouse’s elderly parents. As Nakatani shows in her chapter, the absence of men at home also leads to stress and mental health problems as women feel increasingly isolated in their suburban neighbourhoods. In part, as a consequence of these ‘barriers’ associated with marriage, women’s expectations of prospective marriage partners have reportedly gone up, as Carroll describes in her chapter; today, women expect of men not only three ‘highs’ (high income, high level of education and tall height), but also three ‘goods’ (good looking, good natured and good background). Higher expectations of prospective marriage partners, in turn, help delay marriages. The patrilineal ie system in Japan may be contributing to difficulties in marriage as smaller family sizes now mean that many families have no sons to carry on the family line. For example, a one-child family has only a 50 per cent chance of having a son. In cases where there is no son, it becomes necessary for a son-in-law to be adopted into the family in order to carry on the family line and attend to the memorial rites for the deceased. This can become more difficult as normally the adopted son cannot be a first son, as he already has responsibilities to his birth family. Thus some of the women who have no brothers may feel restricted to finding a spouse that has an older brother (Ochiai 1997). This is possible, but much more difficult in a world without arranged marriages. Resolution of this problem requires not only a change in the entire concept of the family system in Japan, but also a change in the legal basis of family formation in Japan. Moreover, the recession of the 1990s has also likely had an effect on marriage rates. Economic considerations are important in the marriage decision, particularly when a secure income is needed in order to pay for the considerable costs of setting up a new household. As Rebick (Chapter 5, this volume) explains, the 1990s saw a sharp downturn in the job market for new school and university graduates and many young men are unable to find long-term positions in firms. There has been a growth in both unemployment and the use of casual labour, particularly among young men and women. Unemployment rates reached 10.4 per cent in 2001 for men aged 15–24 and 8.7 per cent for women. More than 40 per cent of working men and women in the same age group were working either part-time or in short-term contracts, with much lower earnings than full-time employees.5 This is also one area where the Italian experience is similar to that of Japan (Bettio and Trifilletti Chapters 5 and 11, this volume). Cohabitation of the young with their parents before marriage may also be a factor in the delay of marriage and childbirth. As Ogawa et al. (Chapter 2, this volume) point out, there are increasing numbers of young adults who live with their parents until their late twenties or beyond. Sometimes referred to as ‘parasite singles’, they make up 19 per cent of all men and 14 per cent of all women between the ages 25 and 34 (Yamada 1999). There has been some debate about exactly why this is happening. One sociologist (ibid.) blames the children for being parasitic and their parents for being overly indulgent. Other observers (Genda 2001) see the poor state of the labour market and the lack of job opportunities as responsible for the inability of many young people to settle down. Certainly, the difficulty that young graduates have in finding good, stable full-time jobs seems to have some
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relation to the delay of marriage, but it is not clear that the trend would be reversed even if economic growth picks up in the future. There are good reasons to believe that the labour market for new graduates may never recover to its former character, as firms are restructuring their personnel policy away from hiring large numbers of full-time ‘core’ employees directly out of school and relying more heavily on contract or other forms of temporary labour. In other words, the tendency for children to live at home is unlikely to change in the future. In this respect, the Italian case as described in the chapter by Bettio provides us with an interesting comparison with Japan. In Italy, the same tendencies for later marriage and for children to live with their parents are also evident and this is referred to as the ‘long family’ pattern. As Bettio points out, many of the characteristics of Japanese society that may act to lower fertility are also present in Italy. In Italy, women do the vast majority of household tasks. As in Japan, there is a marked tendency for young people to live with their parents. Births out of wedlock are rare and young couples do not tend to live together before marriage. The demographic trends that we have examined in this section are of great concern to the government. Ageing of the population, declining fertility and delayed (or fewer) marriages, the government views, would ‘threaten the vitality of society . . . and economic growth’(CAO Cabinet Office 2005b) and are top priority issues in government policy today. (In 2002, the government allocated three trillion yen for children and family support.) In trying to reverse these trends, the government has launched a series of campaigns (e.g. the ‘Welcome Baby Campaign’ of 1992) and initiatives (the Angel Plans of 1994, 1999 and the new Children and Childrearing Support Plan (kodomo, kosodate oen plan) of 2005). One set of initiatives aims to facilitate women to both work and have families. Along with paid maternity and paternity leave policy, they provide subsidized childcare. The government has also promoted the concept of ‘family-friendly’ employment practices, such as flexible shifts, job sharing and crèches at the workplace. Another set of policy initiatives is directed at young singles, promoting stable employment and encouraging them to marry (sooner). In an attempt to increase full-time employment for youth, the government has set up special employment agencies and career counselling services throughout the country. With aid from the central government, local governments have also hosted a variety of dating activities for youth. (In 2001 and 2002, the Nara Prefectural government ran a massive campaign distributing leaflets entitled, ‘Marriage Story: Cinderella Story of the 21st Century,’ to its young single residents (Asahi Shinbun 6/12/02). With declining arranged marriages, governments, both central and local, are increasingly attempting to take over the role of matchmakers.
The shifting gender balance In the context of these demographic changes, ‘the family’ has taken on divergent meanings and functions in contemporary Japanese society. These changes are observed in terms of kazoku, katei, setai and the ie, as well as boundaries between family and other social institutions.
The changing Japanese family 11 One manifestation of this is the shift in the gender balance in the workplace, the division of labour at home and expected gender roles. The other is the change in the relationship between the family and community and between the family and the state. The division of labour in the Japanese workplace has gradually changed over the past few decades. The labour force participation rate of women age 15–64 has risen from 50 per cent in 1975 to 60 per cent in 2004 (MHLW3 2005). Much more significant, however, is the fact there has been an increase in the rate at which women physically work away from the household. In 1975, 40 per cent of working women worked at home, either as self-employed (often piece-workers) (naishoku) or as family workers. By 2000, that ratio had dropped by almost two-thirds to 14 per cent. As the external wage rate for women has risen, married women increasingly have moved to employment outside of the home as part-time workers (Osawa 1988). The number of female part-time workers increased from 0.57 million in 1960 to 8.6 million in 2004, representing over 30 per cent of all female workers today (Inoue and Ebara 2005; MHLW4 2004). As Rebick discusses in this volume, the decline of family-run enterprises in the 1990s almost certainly accelerated this trend. At the same time that women are moving into outside employment, the government is encouraging businesses to set up day care facilities at the workplace, allowing women to bring their families into the workplace. In 1996, 6 per cent of firms with more than 500 employees had set up an on-site crèche (Sato 2000).6 As women have become increasingly involved as employees after marriage, and as their education levels have risen, they have also started to seek better working conditions and seemingly more interesting and challenging work. As we have seen, more women participate in the labour force and engage in high-status occupations today. In Japan, however, despite the introduction of legislation to discourage age discrimination, it remains difficult to enter career-track employment after the age of thirtyfive (Ono and Rebick 2003). The only way in which women can avoid having to do this is to maintain a career job through most of the period of raising children. We have already mentioned government initiatives to encourage firms to reemploy women after they take a break for childrearing, and to provide on-site daycare. Even if a break is taken, however, men must start to take more responsibility for childcare and other household tasks if women are to manage full-time careers. Attitudes concerning the gender division of work have shifted more noticeably. According to a government survey on gender equality, in 1992, 60 per cent of respondents supported, while 34 per cent opposed, the statement: ‘Husbands should work outside the home and wives should take care of their families.’ In 2005, this trend reversed, slightly more people (48.9 per cent) opposing the view than supporting it (45.2 per cent) (CAO Cabinet Office 2005a). As Nakatani (Chapter 6, this volume) shows, there are, indeed, signs that the boundaries that distinguish men’s work from women’s work are beginning to shift, but at present, most of the shift is taking place in attitudes rather than in reality. Carroll’s chapter (Chapter 7, this volume) shows us that gender relations are also changing in language use, with greater equality in terms of address. This reflects the trend that a growing number of married couples see themselves as ‘friend couples’ (Nakatani Chapter 6, this volume; Ochiai 1997).
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Shifts in the boundaries of the family While the gender balance in work between men and women is making a modest shift, there are other boundaries that are opening in such a way as to alter the relationship between mother and child. In the past, young parents were given advice and help in raising children from their parents and other relatives including siblings. As Ochiai (1997) points out, there were more of these resources available during the 1950s and 1960s than today, because parents of that generation tended to have many more siblings since they were born prior to the first demographic transition. Today’s parents are not so fortunate, and the problems of mothers finding it difficult to raise children in isolation have been a major concern in Japan over the last twenty years. One way in which this problem is being ameliorated is through the increasing involvement of the community with families in the neighbourhood. Roberts (2002) reports on an initiative taken by a nursery in Tokyo, and Sasagawa (Chapter 8, this volume) describes a programme for ‘educating women to be mothers’ in a middle-class suburb of Tokyo. The blurring of the boundary between the family and the outside world is also seen in language use as Carroll (Chapter 7, this volume) describes how the distinction between the family in-group versus the outside (uchi-soto) is being altered in colloquial language use. The growing number of ‘friend couples’, mentioned earlier, blurs the boundary between family and friend. And so does the current tendency that youth establish closer friendships with schoolmates because of the reduced number of siblings (Carroll, Chapter 7, this volume). She also speculates that the frequent absence of grandparents, along with growing privatization at home (due to more private rooms and the ubiquitous presence of TV sets etc.) may have eroded children’s communicative skills in dealing with the outside world.
Family and the state We also see a blurring of the boundary between the family and the state. Goodman’s account of the discovery of child abuse in Japan (Chapter 9, this volume) shows us how the state has become directly involved in the parenting of children. Before the 1990s, child abuse was considered to be rare or even absent in Japan and this was attributed to the (alleged) strong family structure and stability of the society. In the early 1990s, however, Japan ‘discovered’ that child abuse did exist, and since then, the number of cases of reported abuse has increased exponentially. The state’s reaction to this has been to become involved in these cases, even removing children from their families, where before, little action was taken by authorities. In this manner, the family is no longer viewed as a sacrosanct entity immune to the outside world. Izuhara points out in her chapter that the development of state pensions in the 1960s had already brought the state into the sphere of the ‘family’ to some extent, by reducing the need for intergenerational transfers from children to their parents. This was especially important at that time, because rapid growth meant that the savings of the older generation could not provide for an acceptable standard of living in newly affluent Japan. Japan also desired to match Western levels of provision of
The changing Japanese family 13 basic social welfare. Despite this intervention by the state, the majority of the old in Japan continued to live with their families in three-generation households as in the past. Recently however, this has become more problematic for a number of reasons. Rising levels of affluence now mean that many families do not aspire to these living arrangements. The fall in the number of children in each family also means that there are many cases where it is difficult for the children to accommodate parents, especially if they have demands on both the wife and husband’s side. Many of the elderly do not wish to leave their homes in the countryside if their children now live in the cities. Finally, the higher age at which women now have children means that they can often be caught in the position of having to care for two generations at the same time, or two generations in succession without much of a break. The government has responded to this problem through a ‘Gold Plan’ to increase the provision of old-age care institutions and also by providing old-age care insurance to help individuals pay for their institutionalized care. Nevertheless, the government would prefer if families were able to cohabit with their elderly as much as possible.7 The desire of the Japanese government to rely on families for welfare provision, both for the elderly and for young children, is similar to the pattern observed in Italy and Southern Europe. In both cases, the deliberate use of the family as a resource by the state appears to be greater than is the case in liberal welfare regimes where individual self-reliance is given greater emphasis. There is a temptation to draw simple parallels between the Italian and Japanese cases. For example, Catholicism and Confucianism are sometimes held to be the most important influences behind the reliance on the family. As Trifiletti (Chapter 11, this volume) points out, however, the story is not nearly that simple. In both cases, an examination of the historical process that has led to the present welfare regime is necessary for a full appreciation of its ideological origins. These shifts in the relationship between the state, family and community attest to the changing boundary between the public and private spheres. Long considered a private sacrosanct entity, the family’ has, indeed, been shaped by the outside world. Sasagawa (Chapter 8, this volume) explicitly tells us how community and school activities help define motherhood, and how mothers, in turn, internalize their own sense of what it takes to be a ‘proper’ mother through participation in such activities. Nakatani (Chapter 6, this volume) also discusses how parental roles are shaped, and reinforced, by the outside world; ‘nurturing fathers’, who actively devote themselves to childrearing, often face barriers, and become discouraged, because most childcare facilities and services are designed for mothers. ‘The family’, then, cannot be examined in isolation from the outside world. Consequently, it may only be defined in relation to other social institutions. The changing ‘family’ in Japan is a manifestation of the broader societal changes we witness today, as well as a force in shaping the future trends.
Conclusion The Japanese family has evolved and continues to evolve. In some respects, however, it has not changed. Despite the rapidly declining birth rate and increasing age of
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(first) marriage, as Bettio (Chapter 4, this volume) points out, births out of wedlock have remained rare. Albeit the current trend towards delayed and fewer marriages, majority of Japanese do eventually get married, and most women (88 per cent) and men (87 per cent) do intend, and aspire, to get married ‘some day’ (Inoue and Ebara 2005). Despite changing attitudes towards (ideal) gender roles, as mentioned earlier, there is a persistent societal belief in the importance of intensive mothering for infants (Curtin 2002). Even though growing numbers of women advance their careers without interrupting work, more women (56 per cent versus 28 per cent) still aspire to assume the primary responsibility for childrearing by quitting work (Inoue and Ebara 2005). ‘Nurturing fathers’, discussed by Nakatani (Chapter 6, this volume), are increasingly praised and idealized at least by government campaigns, yet in reality, such fathers continue to face many difficulties in society. There is a persistent gap between the ideal and actual practices. Despite its diversifying functions, moreover, ‘the family’ has remained the most basic unit of society (Ida 1998). It continues to serve as the basis for the country’s welfare policy and employment and hiring practices. There are growing concerns today about the alleged decline of ‘family values’ in association with the increasing divorce rate, domestic violence, and single parenthood (Yuzawa 2003). Despite these ‘problems’, ‘the family’, or kazoku, continues to be regarded the most important thing in one’s life (Tokei Suri Kenkyujo 2004). In other words, while the types and meanings of ‘the family’ have become more diverse, ‘family ideals’ have remained more or less uniform (Ida 1998). As we have seen, there is no fixed type or definition of ‘the family’. If we focus on boundaries, it becomes clear that the family is a coping mechanism that adapts to, and also shapes, broader demographic, economic and social changes. The Japanese family is not necessarily in ‘crisis’; neither are there uniquely Japanese ways in which the family is changing, as is mostly clearly shown by the case of Italy.
Acknowledgement We are grateful to Scott North for his comments on an earlier version.
Notes 1 There are some 500,000 residents with Korean nationality in Japan, who might better be described as a native-born minority group. The foreign-born population in Japan is probably closer to 1 per cent of the population. 2 Includes monthly salary and semi-annual bonuses. Figures from the Wage Census. 3 Rebick (Chapter 5, this volume) shows in Figure 5.2 that the average gender differential has narrowed substantially over the past twenty years, even when controlled for age and education. 4 If we include those who have attended senmon gakko (technical training schools), the proportion of Japanese who have some form of higher education rises to around 70 per cent for both men and women.
The changing Japanese family 15 5 Special Survey of the Labour Force Survey, February 2001, and Labour Force Survey, Annual Report, 2001. 6 The provision of off-site daycare has probably been more influential in allowing women to work while raising young children. The government’s Angel Plans have developed daycare to the point where Japan now has some of the best provision in the OECD. 7 The policies of the Angel Plans including daycare provision and the Gold Plan are somewhat contradictory in the role that they provide for women. The Angel Plans, with their emphasis on the provision of state-subsidized daycare are encouraging women to stay at work. The Gold Plan, however, has emphasized the provision of family-based care for the elderly and this tends to keep women at home.
References ‘Asahi Shinbun’ ‘Kuni ga en musubi “chotto matte” ’ State-initiated match-making: ‘wait a minute’ (Accessed 6/12/2002). Brown, N. C. (2003) ‘Under one roof: The evolving story of three-generation housing in Japan’ in Traphagan, T. and Knight, J. (eds) Demographic Change and the Family in Japan’s Aging Society, Albany, NY: SUNY Press, pp. 53–71. CAO Cabinet Office (2001a) Kokumin Seikatsu Hakusho, Tokyo: Naikakufu. —— (2001b) Shakai Shakatsu Kihon Chosa – Seikatsu Jikan (Zenkoku) (Basic Survey of Social Life – Time Use) Online. Available http://www.stat.go.jp/data/shakai/ 2001/jikan/zenkoku/zenkoku.htm (Accessed 17/6/05). —— (2004a) Annual Report on the Aging Society, Tokyo: Naikakufu. —— (2004b) Shoshika Shakai Hakusho, Tokyo: Naikakufu. —— (2005a) Danjo Kyodo Sankaku Shakai ni kansuru Seron Chosa (Public Opinion Survey on a Gender-equal Society), Tokyo: Naikakufu. —— (2005b) Shoshika Shakaitaisaku no Kihonteki Wakugumi (Basic Framework of Measures for Declining Fertility). Available http://www8.cao.go.jp/shoushi/ framework.html (Accessed 19/4/05). Curtin, S. J. (2002) ‘Changing Attitudes Towards Gender Roles in Japan: 2002 Snapshot’, Social Trends 8. Glocom Platform. Online. Available http://www.glocom.org/ special_topics/social_trends/20020924_trends_s8/ (Accessed 1/7/05). Esping-Andersen, G. (1990) The Three Worlds of Welfare Capitalism, Cambridge, UK: Polity Press. Fukushima, M. (2002) Aremo Kazoku, Koremo Kazoku, (That is a Family, and This is Also a Family), Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten. Genda, Y. (2001) Shigoto no Naka no Aimai na Fuan: Yureru Jakunen no Genzai (A Vague Anxiety at Work: Shaken Youth in Contemporary Japan), Tokyo: Chuo Koron Shinsha Press. Hayashi, M. (2002) Kazoku no Fukken (The Restoration of Fatherhood), Tokyo: Chuko Shinsho. Ida, H. (1998) Singuru Tani no Renai, Kazoku ron (Toward Individually Based Family and Loving Relationships), Tokyo: Sekai Shisosha. Imamura, A. E. (1990) ‘The Japanese Family’, Online. Available http://www.askasia.org/ frclasrm/readings/r000128.htm Inoue, T. and Ebara, Y. (eds) (2005) Women’s Data Book, Tokyo: Yuhikaku. Martin, J. A., Hamilton, B. E., Smith, P. D., Ventura, S. J., Menacker, F. and Munson, M. L. (2003) ‘Births: Final Data for 2002’, National Vital Statistics Reports, 52(10),
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Hyattsville Maryland: National Center for Health Statistics. Online. Available http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvsr/nvsr52/nvsr52_10.pdf (Accessed 16/6/05). MHLW1 (various years) Kosei Tokei Yoran (Handbook of Welfare Statistics), Tokyo: Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare. MHLW2 (2005) Jinko Dotai Tokei Geppo Nenkei (Gaisu) no Gaikyo (Population Trends Monthly Reports Annual Totals). Online. Available http://www.mhlw.go.jp/ toukei/saikin/hw/jinkou/geppo/nengai04/kekka4.html (Accessed 16/6/05). MHLW3 (various years) Rodo Tokei Yoran (Handbook of Labour Statistics), Tokyo: Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare. MHLW4 (2004) Rodo Hakusho (White Paper on Labour), Tokyo: Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare. MOE (2004) Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology, Monbu Kagaku Tokei Yoran (Handbook of Education and Science Statistics), National Printing Office, Tokyo. Murdock, G. P. (1949) Social Structure, New York: The Free Press. Ochiai, E. (1997) The Japanese Family System in Transition: A Sociological Analysis of Family Change in Postwar Japan, Tokyo: LTCB International Library Foundation. Ono, H. and Rebick, M. E. (2003) ‘Constraints on the level and the efficient use of labor’, in Magnus Blomström, Jennifer Corbett, Fumio Hayashi and Anil Kashyap (eds) Structural Impediments to Growth in Japan, Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, pp. 225–258. Osawa, M. (1988) ‘Working Mothers: Changing Patterns of Employment and fertility in Japan’, Economic Development and Cultural Change, 36(4): 623–650. Retherford, R. D., Ogawa, N. and Sakamoto, S. (1996) ‘Values and Fertility Change in Japan’, Population Studies, 50: 5–25. Roberts, G. S. (2002) ‘Pinning hopes on angels: reflections from an aging Japan’s urban landscape’, in Roger Goodman (ed.) Family and Social Policy in Japan, Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, pp. 54–91. Sato, H. (2000) ‘The Current Situation of “Family-friendly” Policies in Japan’, Japan Labor Bulletin, 39(2): 5–10. SOPEMI. (2004) Trends in International Migration, Paris: OECD. Statistics Bureau. (2004) Japan Statistical Yearbook, Tokyo: Tokeikyoku. Tokei Suri Kenkyujo (2004) ‘Kokuminsei no kenkyu: dai-11ji zenkoku chosa’ (Study on national culture: the 11th national survey), Tokyo: Tokei Suri Kenkyujo. Tsumura, A. (2002) ‘Kazoku Seisaku, Danjo Byodo to Shakai Hosho’ (Family Life, Gender Equality, and Social Security), Ohara Shakai Mondai Kenkyujo Zasshi, no. 526, 527: 22–38. Ueno, C. (1994) Kindai Kazoku no Seiritsu to Shuen. (The Establishment and End of the Modern Family) Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten. United Nations, Population Division (2000) Replacement Migration: Is It A Solution Declining and Ageing Populations? New York: United Nations. White, M. I. (2002) Perfectly Japanese: Making Families in an Era of Upheaval, Los Angeles and Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. Yamada, M. (1999) Parasaito Shinguru no Jidai (The Age of the Parasite Single), Tokyo: Chikuma Shinsho Press. Yuzawa, Y. (2003) Deta de Yomu Kazoku Mondai. (Problems of Family Seen Through Data), Tokyo: NHK Books.
Part II
The demographic transition
2
Demographics of the Japanese family Entering uncharted territory Naohiro Ogawa, Robert D. Retherford and Rikiya Matsukura
Introduction In a number of industrialized countries over the past few decades, fertility rates have been below the level needed to ensure the eventual replacement of the population, and in recent years life expectancy at birth in many of these countries has been quickly approaching eighty years. As a result, population age distributions have been changing markedly, with a relative increase in the number of the elderly and a relative decrease in the number of the young. These age-structural shifts have already been generating a wide range of disruptions at both societal and familial levels in these developed countries (Ermisch 2003). Japan is one of the salient examples of these demographic transformations. Japan’s fertility decline was both the earliest to occur in the postwar period and the greatest in magnitude, while its longevity is at the highest level in the contemporary world (Mason and Ogawa 2001; Ogawa and Retherford 1997). Consequently, Japan’s population ageing process has been extremely rapid, and is expected to accelerate further in the years to come. Although Japan’s current demographic situation is similar in many ways to that of other industrialized countries, there are some important differences that relate to family organization (Hodge and Ogawa 1991, Ogawa and Retherford 1993, 1997). For instance, multigenerational households are still fairly common in Japan, whereas they are very rare in the West (Ogawa and Ermisch 1996). According to the 2001 round of the International Survey of Lifestyles and Attitudes of the Elderly, the proportion of the elderly at ages 60 and over living in three-generation households was only 2 per cent in the United States, 1 per cent in Germany and virtually 0 per cent in Sweden, but 22 per cent in Japan, as shown in Figure 2.1 (Cabinet Office 2002). It should be stressed, however, that due to rapid demographic shifts as well as changing lifestyles, the corresponding figure for Japan has been steadily declining over the past two decades; it was 37 per cent in 1981 and 32 per cent in 1991. Although the Japanese government once viewed the persistence of coresident households as a unique asset that could be tapped to offset the adverse effects of population ageing (Ministry of Health and Welfare 1978), the validity of this view has been increasingly questionable.
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Japan
South Korea
The United States of America
Germany
Sweden
0
20
40
60
80
100
% One-person household
Three-generation household
Married couple only
Other household types
Married couple with single child
Figure 2.1 Living arrangements of elderly persons aged 60 and above in selected countries in 2001.
Despite these declining trends in multigenerational coresidence, approximately 30 per cent of married Japanese women of reproductive age are still living with their husbands’ parents. As discussed in previous studies (Hodge and Ogawa 1991; Ogawa and Retherford 1993), the main determinant of nuptial coresidence is whether or not the husband is the eldest son. As a result of a secular decline in fertility, the probability of the husband being the eldest has been rising. Therefore, for young Japanese women, postnuptial coresidence has been an increasingly serious hindrance to committing to marriage, which is in turn likely to contribute to delaying the timing of marriage. This is one of the primary reasons why Japan has become one of the latest-marrying populations in the world – a far cry from the universal-marriage society of earlier years (Retherford et al. 2001). In this chapter, we will discuss how some of these demographic factors have changed over time, and to what extent they have affected the family organization in post-war Japan. In addition, we will examine to what degree Japan’s post-war demographic shifts have affected its family structure, informal intergenerational support system and conjugal relationships. To facilitate the discussion that
Demographics of the Japanese family 21 follows we will heavily draw upon data gathered in the various rounds of the National Survey of Family Planning conducted by Mainichi Newspapers and a wide range of official data published by the government of Japan such as population census and vital statistics.
Increasing survivorship to ever later ages The story of Japan’s post-war economic miracle has often been told by economists (Ogawa et al. 1993). No less striking, however, was the unprecedented rapidity with which Japan’s demographic transition was completed. Taking mortality improvements for example, when Japan joined the OECD in 1964, Japan’s life expectancy at birth was lower than that for any of the OECD member countries in Western Europe at that time. By the mid-1970s, however, Japanese life expectancy was one of the highest among all the OECD members. In 2003, life expectancy at birth rose to 78.4 years for men (the third highest in the world following Iceland and Hong Kong) and 85.3 years for women (the highest in the world). These long-term improvements in life expectancy at birth in post-war Japan are outlined in Figure 2.2. In this graphical exposition, the data on the average age of the fifty oldest deaths in each year over the period 1950–2002 are plotted separately for men and women (Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare various years a). It is worth remarking that the average age of the fifty oldest deaths increased substantially over the second half of the twentieth century for both sexes. In the case of women, the average age of the 50 oldest deaths was 101 in 1950, but increased to almost 108 in 2002. Similarly, it rose from 99 to 106 years during the same period for men. More importantly, the plotted average age trends of the fifty oldest deaths indicate that the tempo of life prolongation has been considerably faster since the second half of the 1960s for both sexes. It should be remembered that the universal medical care programme came into effect in 1961. Taking into account the timing of this important development in Japan’s social security system, it seems plausible that the nation-wide availability of better medical care services 110 108 Age
106 104 102 100 98 1950
1955
1960
1965
1970
1975 Year
1980
1985
1990
1995
2000
Figure 2.2 Change in average age of death among fifty oldest persons in Japan, 1950–2002.
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substantially contributed to improving life expectancy at birth and raising the probability of surviving to older ages. These trends in the improvement of mortality for men and women seem to point to the high likelihood that Japan’s life expectancy will continue rising in the years to come. To forecast Japan’s life expectancy for both men and women up to 2025, we have applied the Lee-Carter method to the newest version of a long-term economic-demographic-social security model developed by the Nihon University Population Research Institute (NUPRI), a detailed description of which is available in Ogawa et al. (2002). As described elsewhere (Lee and Carter 1992; Ogawa 2003a), three parameters need to be estimated in the Lee-Carter method, and we have used time-series data over the period 1950–2000 to estimate the parameters. It should also be stressed that one of the key parameters, expressed as (k), has been estimated as a function of the per capita medical expenditure measured in terms of 1990 constant prices, although the conventional Lee-Carter method assumes a function of the time trend. Figure 2.3 presents how well the 90 per cent confidence interval of the LeeCarter method keeps track of actual mortality changes in recent Japan. In this exercise, the parameters have been estimated over the period 1950–1994, and these estimated parameters have been utilized to forecast the mortality change during the period 1995–2003. As can be clearly seen by inspecting these forecast results, one may safely conclude that the Lee-Carter method is applicable to contemporary Japan. The forecast results derived from the NUPRI model show that the life expectancy at birth for males is anticipated to rise from 77.64 years in 2000 to 83.85 years in 2025. In the case of females, the corresponding expected change 95
90
Age
85 Actual
Women 80
Actual
75 Men 70 1975
1980
1985
1990
1995
2000 Year
2005
2010
2015
2020
2025
Figure 2.3 Actual values and values predicted by the Lee-Carter model. Note The values before 1995 are actual values and the values after 1995 are predicted by the Lee-Carter model with 90 per cent confidence intervals indicated.
Demographics of the Japanese family 23 95
90
NUPRI
90% confidence level
Age
Women Government 85
90% confidence level NUPRI Men
80
Government
75 2000
2005
2010
2015
2020
2025
Year
Figure 2.4 Projected life expectancy at birth for Japanese men and women, 2000–2025.
is an increase from 84.62 years in 2000 to 89.44 years in 2025. Figure 2.4 shows these projected results, coupled with the 90 per cent confidence interval for each sex. These mortality future trajectories suggest that the life cycle pattern of the Japanese population is likely to continue shifting to a pronounced extent during the first quarter of this century. Furthermore, it should be stressed that the magnitude of uncertainties involved in these projected mortality scenarios is considerable, as indicated by the 90 per cent range of forecasting errors. For males, the computed range is from 81.76 to 85.55 years, and for females, from 88.04 to 91.21 years. These uncertainties involved in the simulated results for Japan’s future mortality changes point to the need for each individual to make an appropriate contingency plan for the final few years of his/her life. Japan is now at the fourth stage of the epidemiological transition, the stage in which the onset of degenerative disease is delayed (Martin 1989). At present, three degenerative diseases, that is, cancer, heart disease and cerebrovascular disease, are the major sources of mortality. It should be observed that unlike many developed countries where heart disease is the number one killer, cancer has been the leading cause of death in Japan since 1981. Due to a consequence of diversified dietary patterns, however, the intake of salt has been declining, which has, in turn, reduced the incidence of stomach cancer. In contrast, the incidence of lung cancer has been increasing dramatically over the past few decades; it rose by a factor of 7.6 times for men aged 20 and over, and 6.6 times for their female
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counterparts during 1965–2002. Although the percentage of Japanese males who smoke fell from 82 per cent in 1965 to 47 per cent in 2004, it will take considerable time before such changes in smoking habits among men over time lead to a decline in the incidence of lung cancer. Moreover, the percentage of young women at ages 20–29 who smoke grew from 7 to 21 per cent during the same time period (Japan Tobacco Corporation 2005). It is also worthwhile to note that although the decline in the intake of salt has contributed to the reduced incidence of cerebrovascular disease, after adjusting age compositional differences, Japan still has one of the highest death rates from cerebrovascular disease among industrialized nations (Martin 1989). It is often the case that elderly survivors from this disease are paralyzed to a certain degree, which partially accounts for Japan’s wide prevalence of bedridden cases.
Delayed timing of marriages and births Unlike the case of the United States or that of European countries, Japan’s postwar baby boom was extremely short; it lasted only for the three years 1947–1949. Following this short post-war baby boom, Japan’s fertility declined markedly. During the period 1947–1957, the total fertility rate (TFR) declined by more than half from 4.54 to 2.04 children per woman. Although there were only minor fluctuations around the replacement level following this period until the first oil crisis in 1973, the TFR started to fall again and reached 1.29 in 2003, quickly approaching Italy’s 1.23 for 2000 (see Chapter 4). In line with these changes in the TFR, the birth cohort size varied considerably over time. During the baby boom period, there were, on an average, approximately 2.7 million births per year, but by 1957, the number of births had decreased to 1.6 million. In the early 1970s, however, despite the low fertility rate, it increased to more than 2 million, as an ‘echo’ effect of the baby boom cohorts. Since then, it has been on a downward trend again, recording 1.12 million in 2003, considerably less than one half of the annual total births recorded during the baby boom period. To examine the demographic sources of these fertility changes in post-war Japan, period parity progression ratios (PPPRs) can be calculated from 1950 to 2000, using data from a series of population censuses and vital statistics. A detailed description of the methodology for computing PPPRs has been provided elsewhere (Ogawa and Retherford 1993). The trends in the calculated PPPRs are depicted in Figure 2.5. In this graph, the line labelled B to M indicates ratios of progression of women from their birth to their first marriage (PM). The difference (1⫺PM) is the synthetic proportion of women who never marry, that is, the synthetic celibacy rate. The plotted result for B to M indicates that the synthetic celibacy rate increased almost five-fold during the post-Second World War decades, from 4 per cent in 1951 to 19.3 per cent in 2000. This massive shift in the synthetic celibacy rate suggests that Japan is no longer a universal marriage society (Retherford et al. 2001). Between 1951 and 2000, the other progression ratios declined from 97.4 to 85.7 per cent for marriage to first birth (P0), from 93.3 to 77.0 per cent for first to second
Demographics of the Japanese family 25 100
B to M M to 1
90
1 to 2 80 70 60 50 2 to 3
40 30
4+ to 5+
20 3 to 4
10 0
1950 1955 1960 1965 1970 1975 1980 1985 1990 1995 2000 Year
Figure 2.5 Trends in period parity progression ratios in Japan, 1950–2000. Source: Naohiro Ogawa et al. (2003).
birth (P1), from 58.1 to 32.4 per cent for second to third birth (P2), from 62.5 to 16.1 per cent for third to fourth birth (P3) and from 56.7 to 19.5 per cent for four-plus to five-plus births (P4). Based on these computed probabilities of having children among married Japanese women, we compare a change in the composition of married Japanese women by the number of children they have, in 3 selected years over the last 50 years, as displayed in Figure 2.6. As can easily be seen from this graph, actual family sizes became increasingly homogeneous in Japan between 1951 and 1975, stabilizing at two children (Hodge and Ogawa 1991; Ogawa 2003b). Over the last twenty five years of the last century, the composition of married Japanese women by their number of children became more diversified. For example, two-child families are still the norm, but fewer than one half (47 per cent) of the initial cohort have two children. More importantly, the proportion of married women who remain childless has increased substantially over the recent two decades or so. Because P0 has been declining steadily since 1973, these synthetic cohort percentages who remain childless cannot be dismissed as the result of short-term fluctuations. A similar observation is applicable to the case of PM, the synthetic cohort percentages who never marry. Over the period 1975–2000, the singulate mean age at
26
Ogawa, Retherford and Matsukura
2000
1975
1951
0
10
20
30
40
Childless Three children
50 %
60
One child
70
80
90
100
Two children
Four children or more
Figure 2.6 Compositional change in married Japanese women by the number of children they have, selected years.
marriage of single persons (or SMAM, calculated from age-specific proportions of single persons) increased from 27.6 to 30.8 years for men, and from 24.5 to 28.6 years for women, making Japan one of the latest-marrying populations in the world. During the same period, the proportion never marrying, as measured by the lifetime celibacy rate (calculated as the average of the proportions of single persons at ages 45–49 and 50–54), rose especially for men. It was only 2.1 per cent in 1975, but increased to 12.6 per cent in 2000. For women, it grew only marginally from 4.3 to 5.8 per cent during the corresponding period. Evidently, urbanization and educational attainment are two socioeconomic variables known to influence age at marriage and the proportion never marrying. From 1975 to 2000, the proportion of those residing in urban areas increased only to a slight extent from 76 to 79 per cent. In contrast, the enrolment ratio for tertiary education recorded a remarkable increase, particularly for women. In 1975, 33 per cent of women of eligible age were enrolled in junior colleges or universities, compared with 44 per cent for men. By 2003, these figures had risen to 48 per cent for women and 50 per cent for men (Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology 2004). Some of the recent empirical studies (Ermisch and Ogawa 1994; Ogawa and Retherford 1993; Retherford et al. 2001) have demonstrated, by using both macro and micro-level data, that women’s rising
Demographics of the Japanese family 27 educational attainment is one of the main determinants driving recent marriage trends, and that urbanization is a relatively minor factor. Female employment is another socioeconomic factor that exerts a strong influence on marriage. Rising educational levels of women, coupled with expanding job opportunities particularly in the service sector in the 1980s and 1990s, have been the main engine driving the expansion of female paid employment. Rising educational levels have led to higher wages, which have been shown to have a strong positive effect on the probability of a single Japanese woman working full time. The effect of rising educational levels on women’s full-time work is amplified in Japan, as in other industrialized nations, by the economic returns to tertiary education which are higher for women than for men (Clark and Ogawa 1992; Ogawa 2000; Ogawa and Clark 1995). The ratio of female to male hourly wage (including bonuses) for full-time work among those below age 30 increased from 74 per cent in 1973 to 90 per cent in 2003 (Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare various years b). The considerable rise in the wage ratio for younger persons occurred because of increasing gender equality not only in educational attainment, but also in job tenure as women married later and worked longer before resigning (if they did resign) to marry and start families (Retherford et al. 2001). Apart from these socioeconomic forces, the phenomenon of single adults continuing to live with their parents has become quite common in contemporary Japan. These single adults have been termed ‘parasite singles’ because they are grown children who tend not to contribute much to paying for household expenses (Retherford et al. 2001). Among single women aged 22 and over, excluding students, the proportion living with parents was fairly steady during the 1990s, at 95 per cent in 1990 and 94 per cent in 1998 (Population Problems Research Council of the Mainichi Newspapers 1998). The rising rate of divorce is another factor making marriage less attractive to Japanese women. The rising divorce rate signals to women that marriage is increasingly less likely to provide them with long-term security. Between 1960 and 1995 the total divorce rate (the number of divorces that 1,000 newly married women would have by age 50 according to this year’s age-specific divorce rates) increased from 81 to 203 (Ogawa and Ermisch 1994; Yamamoto and Kojima 1997), implying that approximately 20 per cent of marriages will end in divorce. Recently released estimates of the crude divorce rate (divorces per 1,000 population) indicate a jump from 1.6 to 2.3 between 1995 and 2003. The value of 2.3 exceeds the value of 1.9 for France in 2000 and is approaching the value of 2.4 in Sweden in 2001. In contrast, in Italy, a predominately Catholic country, the corresponding figure is 0.5 for 1999 (United Nations Various years). There is one important development in the mechanism of marital fertility in the 1990s: although P1 had remained around 85 per cent for almost two decades, it began to fall appreciably in the 1990s, which corresponds with Japan’s prolonged economic recession. A recent study by Ogawa (2003b) has yielded two valuable findings, using micro-level data gathered in the 2000 round of the National Survey on Family Planning (Population Problems Research Council of the Mainichi Newspapers 2000). First, married women were influenced by the increased economic uncertainties in the 1990s which significantly affected their
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Ogawa, Retherford and Matsukura
interval from first to second birth. Married women who were exposed to various risks arising from the exceptionally long recession and employment restructuring have an 81.5 per cent probability of having a second birth, as compared with a 90 per cent probability among those who were not exposed to such economic risks. Second, the timing of second birth was closely related to the months spent between marriage and first birth, which has been expanding in recent years. This result implies that the increasing interval between marriage and first birth in recent years has been contributing to the increase in the next birth interval. Because a more detailed analysis of the recent drop in P1 has been made elsewhere (Ogawa 2003b), we do not discuss this aspect here.
Changing pattern of coresidence and declining probabilities of home deaths Marriage-related value shifts have also occurred with the change in the form of marriage. Between 1955 and 1998, the proportion of marriages that were arranged fell from 63 to 7 per cent, as presented in Figure 2.7 (Population Problems Research Council of the Mainichi Newspapers 2000). The decline of arranged marriage appears to be closely linked to the end of universal marriage in Japan (Retherford et al. 2001). Closely related to the decline of arranged marriage is the decline in the proportion of newly married couples who coreside with parents. Between 1955 and 1998, the proportion of newly married couples who coresided with parents fell from 64 to 23 per cent (Population Problems Research Council of the Mainichi Newspapers 2000). As plotted in Figure 2.7, the fall in this proportion was cushioned somewhat by the rise in the proportion of husbands who are eldest 80 70
Husband is eldest son
60
Arranged marriage
%
50 40
Coresidence with parents
30 Coresidence with husband’s parents 20 10 Coresidence with wife’s parents
0 1955
1960
1965
1970
1975 Year
1980
1985
1990
1995
Figure 2.7 Trend in the proportion of marriages that are arranged, the proportion of newly married couples who coresided with parents at the time of marriage and the proportion of husbands who were eldest sons, Japan, 1955–1998. Source: Robert D. Retherford, Naohiro Ogawa and Rikiya Matsukura (2001), p. 86.
Demographics of the Japanese family 29 sons, who traditionally coreside with their parents. As can be seen from Figure 2.7, the proportion of husbands who were eldest sons rose from 40 to 72 per cent between 1957 and 1998 as a consequence of earlier fertility decline. It is also important to note that the traditional pattern of coresidence with husband’s parents rather than wife’s parents is disappearing. Extrapolation of the trend in coresidence with husband’s parents and the trend in coresidence with wife’s parents suggests that the two curves will converge in about two decades. In addition to the declining proportion of newly married women living with their parents (-in-law), the proportion of the elderly coresiding with their children has fallen substantially in Japan, as mentioned in the introductory section of this chapter. Because coresidence facilitates an exchange in resources between generations within each household, these recent declining trends in the prevalence of multigenerational coresidence have been affecting various aspects of post-retirement life of the elderly in Japan. One of the salient examples of these effects can be seen in the change in the place of deaths among the elderly. For instance, the proportion of deaths among the elderly aged 65 and over that occurred at home has declined steadily over time. In 1965, it was 82.6 per cent, but declined to 13.3 per cent in 2001 (Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare various years a). To shed light on such marked changes in the place of deaths among the elderly over time, we have undertaken a multiple regression analysis, employing data for 47 prefectures for the three years 1990, 1995 and 2000. The explanatory variables in the regression are (1) the proportion of those aged 65 and over living with at least one family member (Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications various years) and (2) the number of hospital and clinic beds per 100,000 persons (Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare various years c). The first explanatory variable is expected to represent the availability of caregivers to elderly persons at home, while the second explanatory variable, the availability of hospital and clinic in-patient services, is a substitute for in-home care for the elderly. It should be noted that all these variables were introduced into the regression in the natural logarithmic form, so that each estimated coefficient represents the elasticity of each explanatory variable with respect to the dependent variable. The regressions were conducted separately for males and females. Table 2.1 presents the computed results. A few points of interest emerge from this table. First, the availability of caregivers coresiding with the frail elderly is a principal factor in determining their probabilities of dying at home, although the magnitude of its impact declined over time in the 1990s. For instance, in 1990, a 1 per cent fall in the proportion of those aged 65 and over living with at least 1 family member led to an approximately 11 per cent decrease in the number of deaths at home among elderly men. The corresponding value for 2000 dropped to 3 per cent. Second, the reduction of such impacts over time is more pronounced among men than among women. This result conforms to the fact that because wives’ survivorship at older ages has been considerably higher than that for husbands in contemporary Japan, the incidence of living in one-person households and the incidence of dying in an institution have been substantially higher among
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Ogawa, Retherford and Matsukura
Table 2.1 The effect of coresidence among the elderly aged 65 and above on their place of death, Japan, 1990, 1995 and 2000 Dependent variable
Explanatory variables
Natural logarithm of the proportion of deaths of persons aged 65 and over that occurred at home
Natural logarithm of the proportion of those aged 65 and over living with at least one family member
Natural logarithm of the number of hospital and clinic beds per 100,000 persons
10.864*** (5.33) 2.869*** (4.09)
⫺0.045 (⫺0.38) 0.048 (0.26)
7.938*** (4.77) 2.645*** (3.91)
⫺0.156 (⫺1.40) ⫺0.167 (⫺1.12)
3.205*** (3.20) 1.793*** (3.35)
⫺0.227** (⫺2.57) ⫺0.291** (⫺2.37)
1990a Men Women 1995b Men Women 2000c Men Women
Notes Units of analysis are prefectures. Values in the parentheses underneath the estimated coefficients are t-statistics. The number of observations is 47 for each year. a Adjusted R2 ⫽ 0.398 for men and 0.298 for women. b Adjusted R2 ⫽ 0.369 for men and 0.367 for women. c Adjusted R2 ⫽ 0.261 for men and 0.387 for women. ** Statistically significant at the 5 % level. *** Statistically significant at the 1 % level.
the wives than among the husbands. Third, although the availability of in-patient services at hospitals and clinics was not a significant explanatory variable in either 1990 or 1995, it became a statistically significant predictor in 2000. Fourth, the estimated elasticity of each of the two explanatory variables with respect to the proportion of the elderly dying at home changed drastically in the 1990s, thus suggesting that there has been an emerging pattern of substitution of institutional care for in-home care. This finding is consistent with Japan’s escalating costs for medical care services in recent years (Ogawa and Retherford 1997).
Japan’s declining population and limits to the informal support system A population projection produced from the most recent version of the NUPRI model, coupled with the 2002 United Nations population projections (United Nations 2003), infers that the Japanese population had become the oldest
Demographics of the Japanese family 31 national population by the end of 2003, surpassing the Italian population. Furthermore, Japan’s total population, which was 126.5 million in 2000, is projected to increase to 127.5 million by 2005. After reaching this peak, the nation’s population is expected to decrease continuously to a level of 120.1 million by 2025. The total number of those aged 65 and over is expected to grow steadily from 22 million in 2000 to 37.3 million in 2025. Moreover, due to sexual mortality differentials at higher ages, the predominance of women among the aged population is expected to become increasingly pronounced over time. Special attention should be drawn to the results computed by the authors (Ogawa et al. 2002) showing that the number of very old women aged 85 and over will increase at an astonishing pace over the next 25 years. This fast feminization of the very old population suggests that in a virtually universal marriage society such as Japan, the number of widows will grow rapidly in the next few decades. Because of declining family support by adult children (Ogawa 2003a; Ogawa and Retherford 1997), the increase in elderly widows is very likely to lead to a considerable rise in the demand for institutional care in the years ahead. It is worth noting at this point in the discussion that the number of those aged 100 and over is projected to increase at an annual rate of 11.1 per cent during 2000–2025, which implies that this age group is the fastest growing segment of the population. In 1963, the number of centenarians was only 153, but it is expected to grow to more than 168,000 by 2025. It is also interesting to observe that the median age of the population is forecast to rise dramatically in the years to come. In the case of both sexes combined, it increases from 41.5 to 51.1 years old during 2000–2025. More importantly, the familial support ratio, which relates the female population at ages 40–59 to the total population aged 65–84, is expected to decline substantially over the next 25 years. The value of this index was 1.30 in 1990, and is projected to be 0.65 in 2010, thus indicating that it will decline by 50 per cent in 20 years’ time. These results indicate that the demographic potential for familial support by adult children for the elderly diminishes rapidly, starting from 2007 when the large cohort of baby boomers exits the age group 40–59. In Table 2.2, these projected results are compared with those of the 2002 United Nations population projections. In 2005, Japan’s familial support ratio is the lowest in the entire world, followed by Greece and Italy. The declining trend of the familial support ratio points to the high likelihood that the traditional extended family system will be continuously weakened with the passage of time. Although in 2000 the government started the Long-term Care Insurance Scheme (LTCI) to alleviate the family’s burden in taking care of older parents at home, the number of households without any caregivers is expected to rise so that the effectiveness of this new scheme is likely to be increasingly limited over time. To gain further insights into this issue connected with the LTCI, we have computed the familial support ratio for all the administrative units (approximately 3,400) in Japan for the selected years 1975 and 2025. The results are depicted in Figure 2.8. A brief glance of these maps reveals that the number of administrative units having a familial support ratio less than one has
32
Ogawa, Retherford and Matsukura Table 2.2 International comparison of the projected familial support ratio in 2005 Country
Women aged 40–59/elderly persons aged 65–84
Japan Greece Italy Germany Spain Sweden Portugal France Switzerland United Kingdom United States of America
0.77 0.78 0.81 0.83 0.87 0.89 0.90 0.97 0.98 0.99 1.33
Sources: United Nations, World Population Prospects: The 2002 Revision, New York, 2003. Data for Japan are based on the NUPRI population projection.
been and will be increasing at an alarming rate over the period 1975–2025. More surprisingly, it is projected, though not shown in the maps, that a fairly large number of administrative units will have a familial support ratio less than 0.1 in 2025. These projected results based upon administrative units clearly point to the need for major revision of the LTCI scheme in the years ahead. To place Japan’s future population ageing process in a wider perspective, these projected demographic results for Japan can be further compared with those derived from the 2002 United Nations population projections. As displayed in Table 2.3, the tempo of Japan’s population ageing is unprecedented. Its aged population (i.e. the proportion aged 65 and over) reached the 10 per cent level in 1984 and it was the latest country to reach this stage among all the industrialized nations listed in Table 2.3. Despite this delayed onset, Japan is expected to be the first country in which the aged comprise more than 20 per cent of the total population among all the countries appearing in this table. The length of time required for this proportion of Japan’s population to increase from 10 to 20 per cent is only 21 years. Japan is ageing at a tempo twice as fast as Italy and more than three times as fast as Norway and Sweden. Furthermore, the age compositional shift of the aged population itself deserves special attention. A close examination of data in Table 2.4 reveals that Japan’s proportion of those aged 75 and over among those aged 65 and over for 2025 is likely to be by far the highest in the world, followed by Sweden. Obviously, this marked age compositional shift of the Japanese population will generate a substantial effect on the pattern and level of demand for medical care services, as has been discussed elsewhere (Ogawa 2003a). These demographic shifts in the first quarter of the twenty-first century in Japan are both massive and drastic. No less alarming, however, are value shifts among the Japanese people. These value shifts are well captured in time-series data
1975
Figure 2.8 Familial support ratio by prefecture, 1975 and 2025.
2.0– 1.5–2.0 1.0–1.5 0.5–1.0 0.25–0.5 –0.25
65–84
Women 40–59
2025
2.01.5-2.0 1.0-1.5 0.5-1.0 0.25-0.5 -0.25
65–84
Women 40–59
Table 2.3 International comparison of the speed of population ageing Country
Year in which the aged population reaches
Japan Canada Finland Italy Australia Spain Greece Switzerland Netherlands Germany Denmark Sweden Norway United States of America
10%
20%
1984 1984 1973 1966 1985 1975 1968 1960 1969 1952 1957 1947 1954 1972
2005 2023 2015 2008 2028 2019 2019 2011 2023 2010 2018 2012 2021 —
Time required to increase from 10% to 20% (years) 21 39 42 42 43 44 51 51 54 58 61 65 67 —
Sources: United Nations, World Population Prospects: The 2002 Revision, New York, 2003. Data for Japan are based on the NUPRI population projection.
Table 2.4 International comparison of the projected proportion of those aged 75 and above in those aged 65 and above for selected industrialized nations in 2025 Country
75⫹/65⫹ (%)
Japan Sweden Italy United Kingdom Switzerland Denmark Germany Finland Greece Spain Austria France Uruguay Belgium Norway Netherlands United States of America
59.1 51.9 49.9 48.9 48.4 48.2 48.1 48.1 48.0 47.7 47.6 47.6 46.9 46.9 46.8 45.1 42.8
Sources: United Nations, World Population Prospects: The 2002 Revision, New York, 2003. Data for Japan are based on the NUPRI population projection.
Demographics of the Japanese family 35 gathered in a series of nation-wide surveys concerning fertility and family planning, which have been carried out every other year since 1950 by Mainichi Newspapers (Population Problems Research Council of the Mainichi Newspapers 2005). Since the first round of the survey, except for a few rounds, a question regarding the dependence on children for old-age security has been asked of currently married women of reproductive age who have at least one child. The precoded responses are as follows: (1) ‘expect to depend on children’, (2) ‘do not expect to depend on children’ and (3) ‘never thought about it’. Figure 2.9 shows inter-temporal changes over the period 1950–2004 in the percentage of the respondents who chose the category of ‘expect to depend on children’. The proportion of respondents who expect to depend on their own children declined almost continuously over the period in question. Almost two-thirds of Japanese married women in 1950 expressed the expectation to depend on their own children for old-age security, but only 11.1 per cent in 2000 intended to do so. In addition, since 1963, a question on the attitude of these married women towards taking care of aged parents has been asked in the successive rounds of the Mainichi Newspapers’ surveys. The precoded response categories are as follows: (1) ‘good custom’, (2) ‘natural duty as children’, (3) ‘unavoidable due to inadequacy of public support resources’ and (4) ‘not a good custom’. Figure 2.9 presents changes in the percentage of those who chose one of the first two response categories: (1) ‘good custom’ or (2) ‘natural duty as children’. The plotted result indicates that the proportion of respondents who felt that providing care for elderly parents was either a good custom or natural duty had been, by and large, stable over the period 1963–1986. From 1986 to 1988, however, the percentage distribution changed dramatically. Since then, the decline has continued, albeit at a slower pace. We can speculate that this sudden shift in filial norms was caused 90 Good custom or natural duty
80 70 60
%
50 40 Expect to depend on children
30 20 10 0 1950
1956
1962
1968
1974
1980 Year
1986
1992
1998
2004
Figure 2.9 Trends in norms and expectations about care for the elderly, Japan, 1950–2004.
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Ogawa, Retherford and Matsukura
by a series of policy changes introduced from the mid-1980s that aimed to transfer the responsibility for taking care of the frail elderly from government to families (Ogawa and Retherford 1997). It is worth remarking that further in-depth statistical analysis of time-series data has shown that the recent trends in both the attitudes of Japanese married women towards aged parents and their dependence on children for old-age security are likely to continue in the future, but will also be seriously affected by any changes in social security policy adopted by the government (Ogawa 2003b; Ogawa and Retherford 1993, 1997; Retherford et al. 1999).
Concluding remarks In this chapter, we have discussed Japan’s unprecedented population ageing and their impacts on family organization. Continuing low fertility over the last fifty years is a principal demographic factor accelerating population ageing in post-war Japan. It should be noted that the demographic causes of fertility decline shifted between 1950–1975 and 1975–2000. Before the first oil crisis in 1973, the decline in marital fertility was a primary cause, but since then, delayed marriage has been a major factor. In addition, the delayed timing of first and second births has become increasingly important in the 1990s. Because the reduction of fertility is a principal demographic factor accelerating population ageing in post-war Japan, the government has been making strenuous efforts to implement a variety of policies and programmes to remove or mitigate difficulties involved in child rearing since the early 1990s. To date, however, the impact of these government interventions on actual fertility behaviour has been fairly limited. Also, these government policies and programmes have been primarily designed for raising marital fertility, although the main source of recent fertility reduction lies in the increase in the proportion of young Japanese singles. At present, no specific policy interventions have been made to change these nuptiality trends, although there have been proposals to impose heavy taxes on so-called parasite singles to urge them to get married (Takahashi and Voss 2000). Will Japan’s fertility fall even further to aggravate the ageing process of its population in the years ahead? Is there likely to be a fertility resurgence in the future due to the government’s continuing efforts to implement new policies? At this moment, there are no definite answers. However, to address these questions, fertility in Japan should be continuously monitored, and studies on policy effects should be carried out when new survey data designed for such purposes become available. Apart from raising fertility, Japan has a number of policy options to cope with adverse consequences of population ageing. For instance, because Japan is still a largely age-graded society (i.e. age plays an important role in establishing social hierarchy), the age structural shifts are likely to generate a wide range of disruptions at both societal and familial levels. To alleviate the seriousness of these adjustment problems, therefore, the government can change age-based institutional factors such as the mandatory retirement age and the pensionable age.
Demographics of the Japanese family 37 Besides these policy options, the government should explore the possibility of redefining the age of elderly persons. Up to this point, our discussions have been based on the definition that the age of the elderly population is sixty-five years and over. This fixed definition of the age of the elderly leads to many serious adjustment problems in the labour market and in the operation of the social security system. To solve these problems, therefore, one can propose that a new concept of the age of elderly persons should be introduced and accompanied by relevant changes in policies and programmes. In the case of Japan, if the definition of the aged is gradually shifted from 65 years old in 2000 to 75 years old in 2025, the proportion of the elderly will remain around the 17 per cent level for the next 25 years. Undoubtedly, this change in the definition of the aged will call for massive social engineering under strong government leadership in cooperation with the private sector.
References Cabinet Office (2002) Report on the Fifth International Survey of Lifestyles and Attitudes of the Elderly, Tokyo: Gyosei Printing Company. Clark, R. L. and Ogawa, N. (1992) ‘Employment Tenure and Earnings Profiles in Japan and the United States: comment’, American Economic Review, 82: 336–345. Ermisch, J. F. (2003) An Economic Analysis of the Family, Princeton, NJ and London: Princeton University Press. Ermisch, J. F. and Ogawa, N. (1994) ‘Age at Motherhood in Japan’, Journal of Population Economics, 7: 393–420. Hodge, W. R. and Ogawa, N. (1991) Fertility Change in Contemporary Japan, Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Japan Tobacco Corporation (2005), ‘Outline of Japan Smoking Rate Survey 2005’, JT News Release, 18 October 2005, Tokyo. Lee, R. D. and Carter, L. (1992) ‘Modeling and Forecasting the Time Series of U.S. Mortality’, Journal of the American Statistical Association, 87: 659–671. Martin, L. G. (1989) ‘The Graying of Japan’, Population Bulletin, 44: 1–42. Mason, A. and Ogawa, N. (2001) ‘Population, labour force, saving and Japan’s future’, in M. Blomström, B. Gangnes and S. La Croix (eds), Japan’s New Economy: Continuity and Change in the Twenty-First Century, Oxford: Oxford University Press: 48–74. Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology. (2004) Statistical Bulletin of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology, Tokyo: Government Printing Office. Ministry of Health and Welfare. (1978) White Paper on Health and Welfare, Tokyo: Health and Welfare Statistics Association. Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare. (Various years a) Vital Statistics of Japan, Tokyo: Health and Welfare Statistics Association. Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare. (Various years b) Basic Survey on Wage Structure, Tokyo: Rodo Horei Kyokai. Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare. (Various years c) Survey on Medical Facilities, Tokyo: Health and Welfare Statistics Association. Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications. (Various years). Population Census of Japan, Tokyo: Japan Statistical Association.
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Ogawa, N. (2000) ‘Women’s career development and the timing of births: the emergence of a new fertility mechanism?’ in The Population of Japan: An Overview of the 50 Postwar Years, Tokyo: The Population Problems Research Council of the Mainichi Newspapers, pp. 131–155. Ogawa, N. (2003a) ‘Population ageing and its impact on the socioeconomic system in Japan’, in Ageing in Japan 2003, Tokyo: Japan Ageing Research Center: 123–150. Ogawa, N. (2003b) ‘Japan’s Changing Fertility Mechanisms and its Policy Responses’, Journal of Population Research, 20: 89–106. Ogawa, N. and Clark, R. L. (1995) ‘Earnings Patterns of Japanese Women: 1976–1988’, Economic Development and Cultural Change, 43: 293–313. Ogawa, N. and Ermisch, J. F. (1994) ‘Women’s Career Development and Divorce Risk in Japan’, Labour, 8: 193–219. Ogawa, N. and Ermisch, J. F. (1996) ‘Family Structure, Home Time Demands, and the Employment Patterns of Japanese Married women’, Journal of Labor Economics, 14: 677–702. Ogawa, N. and Retherford, R. D. (1993) ‘The Resumption of Fertility Decline in Japan: 1973–92’, Population and Development Review, 19: 703–741. Ogawa, N. and Retherford, R. D. (1997) ‘Shifting Costs of Caring For The Elderly Back to Families in Japan’, Population and Development Review, 23: 59–94. Ogawa, N., Jones, G. and Williamson, J. (1993) Human Resources in Development along the Asia-Pacific Rim, Singapore: Oxford University Press. Ogawa, N., Kondo, M., Tamura, R., Matsukura, T., Saito, A., Mason, S. and Tuljapurkar, N. (2003) Long-term Perspectives for Japan: An Analysis Based on a MacroeconomicDemographic-Social Security Model with Emphasis on Human Capital, Tokyo: Nihon University Population Research Institute. Population Problems Research Council of the Mainichi Newspapers. (1998) The Future of the Family: Beyond Gender – Summary of the Twenty-fourth National Survey on Family Planning, Tokyo: The Population Problems Research Council of the Mainichi Newspapers. Population Problems Research Council of the Mainichi Newspapers. (2000) The Population of Japan: An Overview of the 50 Postwar Years, Tokyo: The Population Problems Research Council of the Mainichi Newspapers. Population Problems Research Council of the Mainichi Newspapers. (2005) Changing Family Norms among Japanese Women in an Era of Lowest-low Fertility: Summary of the First National Survey on Population, Families and Generations in Japan, Tokyo: The Population Problems Research Council of the Mainichi Newspapers. Retherford, R. D., Ogawa, N. and Sakamoto, S. (1999) ‘Values and fertility change in Japan’, in R. Leete (ed.), Dynamics of Values in Fertility Change, Oxford: Oxford University Press: 121–147. Retherford, R. D., Ogawa, N. and Matsukura, R. (2001) ‘Late Marriage and Less Marriage in Japan’, Population and Development Review, 27: 65–102. Takahashi, H. and Voss, J. (2000) ‘Parasite Singles – a uniquely Japanese Phenomenon?’ Japan Economic Institute Report 31A, Washington, DC: Japan Economic Institute. United Nations. (2003) World Population Prospects: The 2002 Revision, New York: United Nations. United Nations. (Various years) United Nations Demographic Yearbook, New York: United Nations. Yamamoto, C. and Kojima, H. (1997) ‘Nuptiality and Divorce in Japan: 1995’, Journal of Population Problems, 53: 45–66.
3
Japanese youth’s attitudes towards marriage and child rearing Nobuko Nagase
Introduction The marriage age in Japan is rising with no end in sight. According to the 2000 Census, only 43.5 per cent of women in the 25–29 age group were married, down from 76 per cent in the 1980 Census. The proportion of unmarried men is rising even more rapidly. The Census showed that 45.1 per cent of men aged 30–34 stayed ‘non-married’, while the figure was 26.4 per cent for women (see Figure 3.1). This has contributed to declining fertility, as marriage is still strongly associated with childbirth in Japan. Most marriages in Japan are followed by childbirth within a year and a half, and the rate of childless married couples remains very low (Nakata and Mosk 1987). Less than 2 per cent of children are born out of wedlock. As few as 7 per cent of singles in 2002 had any experience of co-habitation with a partner, though this rate had risen by two to three points since 1992, according to the Twelfth Japan National Fertility Survey (2002). Why has marriage in one’s early twenties lost its appeal to Japanese youth? According to Ono (2003), single women, especially the more educated, are reluctant to get married due to the highly-gendered roles of husband and wife in Japan (also Iwagami 1999). Yamada (1999) and Miyamoto et al. (1997) explain that this is because they can enjoy a higher standard of living by living with their parents. Single women who live with their parents are indeed likely to delay marriage, controlling for education, age and work status (Nagase 2002). Others have pointed out that the rise in the educational attainment of women has increased their earnings and thus the opportunity cost of leaving work to get married (e.g. Higuchi and Abe 1999, Yashiro 1999). Iwasawa (1999) attributes delayed marriage to the changing nature of partnerships among youth in Japan. She states that more youth today engage in sexual relations prior to marriage and seek intimate relations outside the traditional framework of marriage, even though premarital pregnancy often compels young couples to get married (if not, pre-marital pregnancies are often terminated by abortion).1 Also, an increase in non-standard employment is creating young workers of both genders who cannot get stable work with sufficient income to form new families (Nagase 2002). In short, despite the government’s numerous attempts to help youth form new families,
40
Nobuko Nagase 80.0
Male 25–29 Male 30–34 Female 25–29 Female 30–34
70.0 60.0 50.0 40.0 30.0 20.0 10.0 0.0
1950
1960
1970
1980
1990
2000
Figure 3.1 Percentage of never-married Japanese in their late twenties and thirties.
such as the ‘Angel Plan (1994)’, ‘New Angel Plan (1999)’, ‘Measure Against Declining Birth Rate and Plus One Proposal (2002)’ and most recently, the ‘New-New Angel Plan’ (2004), these efforts have not yielded the intended results. This chapter examines how Japanese youth view marriage and child rearing drawing on data from the Eleventh and Twelfth Japanese National Fertility Survey in 1997 (hereafter Eleventh JNFS and Twelfth JNFS),2 conducted by the National Institute of Population and Social Security Research, and on the interviews I conducted with 123 women and 43 men in collaboration with a team of researchers. These interviews will be supplemented by the Survey on Women’s Work and Family Life conducted in 2001 by the Japan Institute of Labor.3 I will start by looking at some background data on marriage and work in Japan before proceeding to the analysis from interviews.
Marriage and work: mother’s care as a social norm Many young women, particularly highly-educated and affluent urban residents, are reluctant to get married, because they perceive that it is difficult to balance child rearing and career. Many women also feel that they would have to change their life style to a large extent after marriage. This is observed in the labour participation rate of mothers with young children. Although the labour force participation rate of mothers with school children is on the rise, only about 30 per cent of mothers whose first child is under age 1 participate, and this percentage has shown no increase for the younger cohorts (Nagase 2003). This is in contrast to many Western countries where the labour force participation rate of mothers with very young children is on the rise. This is so despite the fact that the passage of Equal Employment Opportunity Act in 1985 led to a higher percentage of females
Attitudes towards marriage and child rearing 41
Married for 5 to 9 years
Married for 0 to 4 years
Full-time housewife
0%
20%
40%
Full-time employment
Non-standard employment
Full-time housewife
Non-standard employment
60%
Full-time employment
80%
100%
Figure 3.2 Work status of married women with a child or children.
enrolling in universities and enhanced career opportunities. The implementation of the Child Care Leave Law in 1992 also made it easier for workers to combine full-time work and family care, as it gave workers the entitlement to take childcare leave during their children’s first year. According to the Eleventh JNFS that surveyed women who were less than 49 years of age in 1997, about 40 per cent of women resigned from regular work at marriage, and among those who continued regular work at marriage, another 40 per cent resigned work at pregnancy or at birth (Nagase 1999, 2003). The Survey on Women’s Work and Family Life, mentioned earlier, also showed that over half of the female respondents said that they quit work, either because they wanted to take care of their children themselves or they were trying to avoid the double burden of work and child bearing. Even the most recent survey, Twelfth JNFS of 2002, showed a similar trend, although more women do return to work with shorter periods of non-participation. As shown in Figure 3.2, about 70 per cent of mothers who had children right after marriage were full-time housewives (60 per cent for those who are married for 5 to 9 years). The Twelfth JNFS gave a somewhat different picture in terms of child-care leave use. As shown in Figure 3.3, for children born after 1998, over 70 per cent of females who continued full-time work after the birth of their first child took leave, reflecting enhancement of the Leave Law. The Leave Law has been enhanced in three phases. In 1995, workers at small branches were also given the rights that had previously only been given to workers in branches with more than 30 employees. In 1997, a child-care leave allowance was introduced and funded from employment insurance. In 2001, the allowance was increased to 40 per cent of earnings. Today, more women are taking advantage of child-care leave. However, if we look at the use of child-care leave with respect to all births, we find that the percentage is merely 14 per cent and the change has been small. This is because many women quit work (and thus do not take leave) either at marriage or at pregnancy or at childbirth; less than 30 per cent of mothers continue fulltime work after childbirth. It is also because most non-standard employees lack entitlement to the leave.
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Nobuko Nagase 80 70 60 50 40 30 20 10 0 1989–1991
1992–1994
1995–1997
1998 on
Year when child was born Percentage of children born Percentage of women who continued full-time work
Figure 3.3 Percentage of users of child-care leave.
Interviews with young urban employees and reference groups Why do many women quit work at marriage or childbirth, and how does it relate to their delaying marriage? In this section, I analyse their attitudes towards marriage and child rearing drawing on the interviews we conducted. Methodology In 1997, I collaborated with a group of researchers in conducting and analysing semi-structured interviews with written questionnaires. The study was supported by the Ministry of Health and Welfare, and was conducted and analysed by an interdisciplinary team of scholars including psychologists, economists and sociologists.4 We interviewed 51 full-time female employees and 26 full-time male employees in their twenties and thirties in 6 large enterprises in the Tokyo metropolitan area. As a reference group, we conducted additional interviews with 33 full-time working women and 17 full-time working men in Yamagata, Fukui and Shizuoka prefectures. For comparative purposes, we also interviewed 19 full-time housewives and 20 part-time working women in the Tokyo metropolitan area. Respondents were first asked to fill in questionnaires concerning personal attributes such as age, educational attainment, income and dwelling. The questionnaire sheet also asked how one would like to have children taken care of when one
Attitudes towards marriage and child rearing 43 worked, and whether one would want to continue work after childbirth and on what conditions. The questionnaire sheet then gave twenty sets of opposing adjectives, namely ‘imperfect–perfect’, ‘warm–cold’, ‘calm–volatile’, ‘like–dislike’, ‘enjoying–suffering’, ‘strong–weak’, ‘thoughtful–wayward’, ‘passive– positive’, ‘simple–difficult’, ‘stiff–soft’, ‘lively–tired’, ‘dark–light’, ‘stable–unstable’, ‘irresponsible–responsible’, ‘grateful–troublesome’, ‘non-attractive–attractive’, ‘trustworthy–loose’, ‘faithful–non-faithful’, ‘sensitive–dull’, ‘boring–interesting’, and respondents were asked to scale whether their impression of becoming a parent was very close rather close or did not relate at all to each set of adjectives. They were then asked to give freely three adjectives for ‘marriage’ and ‘child bearing’ to explain why they gave such adjectives, and to give episodes that helped them form their views.
Characteristics of the interviewees The sample statistics of the interviewed women shown in Table 3.1 are of interest. Even though two-fifths of employed women in Tokyo were married, only one woman had any children. On the other hand, in the non-metropolitan areas, more than half of full-time employees were married and among those, about half had children. In Tokyo, it was mostly full-time housewives and part-time women workers that had any children. Very few full-time women workers had any
Table 3.1 Sample statistics for interviewed subjects Firm
Women
Men
Married Childless Large firms, 19 metropolitan Tokyoa Large firms, 10 nonmetropolitan areab Full-time 3 housewives Part-time 1 workersc Sub total 33 Total
Single At least 1 child
Married Childless
Single At least 1 child
1
31
7
4
15
9
14
4
7
6
16
0
—
—
—
17
2
—
—
—
43 123
47
11
11 43
21
Notes a There were six firms. Employees were interviewed at three different branches of one of the firms. b There were three establishments that were part of two of the large firms in Tokyo. c These were in one firm, different from the firms in Tokyo.
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children. This is consistent with the finding of a larger study that nearly 80 per cent of mothers with new-born babies in urban areas were full-time housewives (Nagase 2003). The female full-time employees interviewed in Tokyo were the most highly educated. Table 3.2 shows some other characteristics of the women interviewed. Among the 51 full-time employees, 34 had a four-year university degree, 14 had a two-year college degree and only 2 had no more than a high school education. The hiring standards at large enterprises were high and competitive and some of the women interviewed in metropolitan area had jobs with high career prospects. On the other hand, among the 33 interviewed outside the Tokyo metropolitan area, a majority of 29 had only a high school degree, and their levels of educational attainment levels were lower. Moreover, most of the women interviewed were workers at local branch factories. Among those interviewed in Tokyo, the parttime workers were the least educated, as less than half had post-secondary education. The educational level of full-time housewives was higher than that of part-time workers, as the majority had post-secondary education, though most had two-years rather than four years of education after high school. This difference in educational attainment is consistent with many studies that have found that the less educated are likely to return to work as part-time workers after a spell away from work during child bearing (Higuchi 1992, Nagase 1997). Moreover, over 50 per cent of the single women were living with their parents, but only one married woman in Tokyo lived with her parents. She was successfully able to combine work and child rearing. Co-habitation with in-laws after marriage has declined in general. Nevertheless, co-habitation with in-laws Table 3.2 Characteristics of women interviewed Variable
Average age Age range Education High school Two year college University Average tenure (yrs) Tenure range (yrs) Cohabitation with parents (%) Live near parents (%) Sample size
Tokyo
Non-metropolitan area
Tokyo
Married
Single
Married
Single
Housewife
Part-time
28.6 22–38
26.9 20–35
27.8 23–33
23.9 20–29
34.6 29–40
34.8 24–40
1 7
1 7
16 1
13 3
1 9
11 5
12 6.9
22 5.6
0 8.6
0 6.4
8
2 2.1
3–15
2–13
5–14
3–10
5
55
56
88
11
11
35
10
29
6
42
33
20
31
17
16
19
18
0–7
Attitudes towards marriage and child rearing 45 continues to be common in non-metropolitan areas. As shown in Table 3.2, the majority of the interviewees outside the Tokyo metropolitan area were living with parents or in-laws after marriage. None of the married women in Tokyo lived with their in-laws. For men, the educational attainment of the full-time workers interviewed was similar to that of the women. Among 26 male employees interviewed in Tokyo, 24 had a university or higher degree, whereas 15 out of 17 interviewed in nonmetropolitan factories only had a high school diploma. The average age of singles was 29.4 for men and 26.9 for women in Tokyo, while it was younger (25.3 for males and 23.9 for females) in the non-metropolitan areas. The average ages of the married men and women were about the same in the two areas. The perception of marriage among women There were three types of responses when women were asked about attitudes towards marriage. The first was a more traditional view that getting married was considered a necessary part of life. Those women associated single life with liberty, and wanted to enjoy single life for some time before getting married. They perceived that once they got married, however, their main identity would be ‘housewife’ and that they would work mostly to help ends meet. My image of marriage is ‘happiness’, ‘endurance’ and ‘dream’. I say ‘endurance’ because if you choose to live with in-laws, you may have to endure small troubles, and if you choose not to live with in-laws, you will have to do everything by yourself. I want to travel here and there before I get married. (Non-married employee, early twenties, non-metropolitan area) Whom you marry determines your destiny, whether you can live rich or whether you have to work through your life. (Non-married employee, early twenties, non-metropolitan area) I want to have two children. Marriage is happiness and also a constraint. I want to get married in my twenties, because I feel you get more blessings if you marry young. (Non-married employee, early twenties, Tokyo) A second type was found among the better-educated Tokyo females. They were more self-centred, and enjoyed their private urban life. When they had a child, most of them wanted to become a careful and loving full-time mother like their mothers. However, they felt rather burdened with the image of the good mother, and also, because marriage eventually would mean quitting work, they were not rushing into marriage. Also their salary was good enough for their needs.
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Nobuko Nagase I always had my way in my family. Marriage may not allow this kind of life, but I will have to try. I want to live a close distance to my parents, near enough to see their faces everyday, but far enough so that I don’t have to do that. (Non-married employee, late twenties, Tokyo) I want to take full care of my child when it is small. But I think a couple without children is also attractive. What bothers me about marriage is that you may not be able to spend (money) as you wish. (Non-married employee, late twenties, Tokyo) I don’t want to lower my standard of living by having a child. My mother stayed home to raise me and she let go of her own wishes in order to spend money on me. I feel mothers should give all their affection towards children. So if I am to have a child, I should quit work to care for the child. (Non-married employee, late twenties, Tokyo)
The last type sought to have both career and family. These women wanted to be recognized at work. Raising children carefully was also an important life goal. However, it was difficult to reach this goal with their and their husbands’ working hours. Work is equally demanding, both for males and females at my workplace. You can’t go home at 5 pm if you want to be recognized at work. In-laws pressure me that it’s time that I deliver the family’s baby, and this is something that really gets me down. Marriage makes your social relations much more complex and constrained. (Married employee, early thirties, Tokyo) I want to continue working and have two children. But I feel that taking several months leave twice is asking for too much. Maybe I can only have one child. There is one Leave user at my workplace. She is time pressured to be on time and rushes to day-care. Perhaps two children are too much. My husband is so busy that I cannot depend on him on weekdays. Why do only I have to take the burden? I don’t know when I can really make up my mind to have a child. (Married employee, early thirties, Tokyo) Many of the last type had equally demanding, or equally treated jobs as men. They needed to be able to handle pressures and do overtime work in order to get high recognition at work. However, it was mostly women that were expected to do the housework and child care. Their frustration was high, especially when in-laws and their spouses expected them to take the traditional role of women to do the housework and rear children. On the other hand, they seemed to be satisfied with life when their husbands helped with housework. Many felt that child raising is
Attitudes towards marriage and child rearing 47 important, and because of that, they were frustrated and were hesitant about the timing of childbirth. The last type, however, was not the majority. On the other hand, full-time housewives seemed to have more positive views on marriage and child rearing. Overall, they were satisfied with life as housewives, although some reluctantly became housewives by forfeiting their career. Many wanted to work part-time to help the household budget when their children got older. Home is the foundation of living, and a place to which you belong. Childraising is your personal growth and also acceptance of your child’s personality. (Married, in late thirties with one child) I enjoy the life of a full-time housewife. You can even take naps. Life is much better when you get married. I enjoy being with my child. (Married, in late thirties with one child) Marriage gave me the happiness of gaining new family members. It also gave me a feeling of stability. On the other hand, you cannot have much contact with the outside world for a decade if you have three children. I can lead a stable life with my husband’s income, but I feel that I cannot spend just as I wish. (Married in late thirties with three children) I was reluctant to quit work, but I thought happiness is in devoting yourself to your husband and your children. After a while, though, I found that I lost my own self. I feel I am trapped in my role as mother to raise perfect and ideal children. (Married in late thirties with two children) The difficulty of balancing work and child raising Regardless of their views on marriage, most working women, or 80 per cent of the full-time working singles interviewed, expressed their desire to get married, have children and continue work after childbirth. Yet, many perceived it difficult to continue work after childbirth due to a lack of what they considered necessary conditions: (1) their employers’ understanding and cooperation, (2) their husband’s willingness to share the burden of household duties and, for employees in Tokyo, (3) availability of good day-care centres right after maternal leave or child-care leave and in the non-metropolitan areas, (4) grand-parental help in child raising. Among the 20 married full-time working women interviewed in Tokyo, only one had any children. Among the single or married but childless women interviewed in Tokyo, about a half replied that they wanted to take care of any future child by themselves or have a relative take care of them. Some said that they simply wanted to do so,
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Nobuko Nagase
while others believed that their child’s development might be harmed otherwise. This kind of reply was also found among non-metropolitan employees, but while many of these employees would be able to ask for grandparents living nearby to take care of children, most urban employees lacked such support. I would like to be a full-time mother when I have children. I don’t have a bad image of child-care facilities. Still, I would like to provide good care myself. I would like to return to work if possible when my children got older. (Non-married employee, early twenties, Tokyo) When I do have a child, I want to take care of it myself and love it very much, because I think the foundation of a person is formed before age three. (Married employee, late twenties, Tokyo) In my workplace, I now see a few mothers who use child-care leave and continue working after having children. They seem so busy and burdened. I would not choose such path unless it is a necessity. (Non-married employee, late twenties, Tokyo) Another group of women wanted to combine work and child rearing, yet felt compelled to choose between the two. I would like to have children very much and also to continue to work, but day care centres in a convenient urban location lack play-yards, and also, they are not open long enough. I think I will have to quit my work if I have a child. (Married employee, early thirties, Tokyo) I want to continue working, but it will be very difficult to do so when I have a baby. I will think about having a child when I come near my time limit for having a baby. (Married employee, late twenties, Tokyo) Some women, albeit a few, were determined to have both children and career, but many expressed anxiety. I want both, but thinking about the negative impact on my work, and thinking about the likelihood that my child may suffer from my working, I don’t know when I can really have a child. (Married employee, early thirties, Tokyo) In the interviews in the non-metropolitan areas, the replies were different. Many of them seemed to work not for their own life goals, but mostly as part of a family decision to make ends meet. The majority had in-laws in the household
Attitudes towards marriage and child rearing 49 and so, unlike the situation in Tokyo, the gap between overtime work and day care opening hours was not an important issue. Rather, the concern of most working wives was to maintain harmonious relations with their in-laws. They wanted to have children, in part, to unite the extended family. Living with in-laws is not easy. But you feel strengthened when you have in-laws to talk to when you have problems with child-raising. Having a child is such a blessing. (Married employee, early twenties, non-metropolitan area) Raising a child is a mother’s happiness. However, I have to continue work and have my child cared for by my mother-in-law. (Married employee, late twenties, non-metropolitan area) The difference observed between Tokyo and the non-metropolitan areas was also attributable to a differential in financial needs. The average income of husbands was lower in the non-metropolitan areas.
Image of parenting To examine the kinds of images women held of parenting, I conducted a twodimensional factor analysis of the twenty sets of adjectives mentioned earlier. The first factor showed uneasiness and anxiety, such as ‘suffering’, ‘volatile’, ‘dislike’, ‘boring’, ‘tired’, ‘dark’ and ‘wayward’. The second factor referred to hope and forward expectations, such as ‘responsible’, ‘trustworthy’, ‘sensitive’, ‘attractive’, ‘strong’, ‘faithful’, ‘grateful’ and ‘warm’. I scored and made two indices with an average of 100 for the entire group and compared the index average between groups. The uneasiness index, the first factor, was higher among married and childless full-time workers in the Tokyo group (101) than their counterparts in the non-metropolitan areas (95). The difference was statistically significant, supporting the view that full-time employees in non-metropolitan areas do not have as much anxiety over child raising. The uneasiness index was also higher for the educated, both in Tokyo and in non-urban areas, though the forwardness index, the second factor, was not significantly different. The uneasiness index was significantly higher for the group of married and childless women who selected ‘baby-sitters’ as their expected choice of child care. Their average score was 110, 10 per cent higher than the average. Baby-sitters are more expensive in Japan having no governmental subsidy, compared with subsidized child-care centres. Baby-sitters are often chosen as complementary help by metropolitan employees who work longer hours than the opening hours of subsidized day-care centres. Therefore, the result can be interpreted as showing that individuals with the strongest commitment to continue working had significantly higher uneasiness towards becoming a parent. This was particularly the case for women living in Tokyo and women with higher education.
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Nobuko Nagase
Perceptions of marriage and child rearing among young men Now let us turn to the responses of men. Among 26 male workers in Tokyo’s metropolitan area that were interviewed, nearly 60 per cent were single, and another 15 per cent were married but had no children. Among 17 workers interviewed in the non-metropolitan area, about two thirds were married and more than 10 had children. Singles were asked to give three words for the impression they got from the word ‘marriage’ and then to explain their choices, and both the singles and the married men were asked to give three words for the impression they had of ‘being a parent’ and then to explain their choices. Some of the negative words given for their impression of ‘marriage’ among single men were ‘responsibility and duty’, ‘constraint’, ‘reduction of free time’, ‘takes much money’, and ‘compromising’. Some of the positive words given were ‘happiness’, ‘love’, ‘warmth’, ‘lifetime big event’, ‘having children’. However, to my surprise, more than a half, or 12 out of 21 single males, replied solely with non-positive words for their impression of marriage. The most often cited word was ‘responsibility’. Their impression on ‘being a parent’ was also rather negative, such as ‘difficult’, ‘much work’, although it included more positive words such as ‘treasure’, ‘enjoyment’, ‘love’ and more neutral words such as ‘education’ and ‘nurturing’. Many men also shared the view that children should be taken care of by their mother, so marriage meant taking the full responsibility for supporting the family. Marriage is ‘taking responsibility’. I would have to support my family well enough. Marriage is a ‘long period’. You are to spend thirty to forty years of life with another person. I am not too sure if I can get along with another person for so long. Marriage is a ‘constraint’, that is, losing freedom in the use of time. I would like to get married by forty. In order to do so, I need to make up my mind to say farewell to my single life’. (Non-married male employee, thirty five, Tokyo) My impression of marriage is ‘constraint’. Now I am free to do anything in my free time. I would need to be more thoughtful when I got married. I would lose my time for hobbies and time with friends. Marriage is also a ‘compromise’. Now I know that there is no perfect beauty, nor am I well-matched for such a person. Marriage is like ‘a white sheet of paper’. You can draw a gloomy picture or a rosy one, depending on how you live with your partner. I would like to put beautiful colours on it. (Single man in early thirties, metropolitan area) The impression contrasted with non-married women. Many women had a relatively non-negative impression on ‘marriage’ compared with men, but a more negative impression of the burdens of having children compared with men. This is perhaps because after marriage, women are expected to take the duties of
Attitudes towards marriage and child rearing 51 taking care of children while men are expected to take care of financial responsibilities. On the other hand, the impression of marriage and parenting was much more positive and concrete for married men. It was more concrete for those who already had children. Even for those who did not have children, married men gave more positive words to parenting, such as ‘something to look forward to’, ‘growth of own self’, ‘loving’, though some negative words such as ‘much money required’ were also mentioned by more than a few. I want my child to grow and to get good stimulation. I want to direct my children if they go wrong so that they do not trouble others. I don’t want to force my children, but I want them to do their best in whatever they do, either in studies or in leisure activities. (Married man in early thirties with two children, non-metropolitan area) Child-raising is hard work. My child would jump up on my face on weekend mornings when I was sleeping in bed, and I would have to take him out for a walk even though I might have been very tired. I used to dislike children before marriage, but having one’s own child is a different thing. Though marriage reduces freedom, it gives you a place to belong to. (Married man in early thirties with one child, Tokyo) These interviews show that parenting takes on a more positive meaning once one experiences it.
Concluding remarks I have shown how young women (and men), both married and unmarried, view marriage and child rearing. Aside from those who lived with in-laws in the countryside, very few women felt that continuation of their present work alongside child raising was possible or probable. Many also felt that a mother’s full time care was important for children. Thus, many women replied that they would resign from work when they had children, as many women in Japan, indeed, do. Due to the perceived difficulty in balancing work and family, women with a higher education, income and position and better work conditions were particularly reluctant to get married. Interviews with single men also showed that they lacked a strong motive to get married. Many men also expected their future wives to stay home to take care of children, so that marriage and having children meant taking financial responsibility for the whole household. Although those who were already married expressed a more positive attitude towards marriage and being a parent, more than half of single men viewed marriage as a commitment to duty rather than a blessing. The labour market in Japan for youth has changed rapidly since the interviews were conducted in 1997. According to the Eleventh JNFS of 1997, 80 per cent of women had full-time regular employment before marriage. However, more youth
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Nobuko Nagase
today are losing the opportunity to enter a full-time stable work position, and the proportion of new graduates who start their career in non-standard work positions has increased. The Twelfth JNFS in 2002 showed that one fifth of single males and one third of single females in the age group 25–29 were in atypical employment. The wage level of non-standard employees today is about 20 per cent lower than that of regular employees after controlling for education, occupation, age, tenure and firm size (Nagase 2004). Both because of low wages and unstable work hours, their annual income barely supports them. With the deteriorating labour market, youth would have further backed off from family formation and child raising since 1997. At the same time, for those women who were able to get into standard employment, the prolonged work hours and the increasingly competitiveness at work is likely to have made them more reluctant to give up their career, and thus, to get married and have children. In the 1980’s, more than half the women got married in a narrow range of a few years in their early twenties. Many disliked the thought that they would be seen as ‘on the shelf’. Our sample women who were interviewed in the late 1990’s showed no such pressure that they should rush into marriage. And this trend is likely to continue for the foreseeable future.
Notes 1 Pregnancy prior to marriage was 13 per cent of all births in 1980, while the percentage rose to 26 in 2004. 2 The interview research was done with the support of Nenkin Fukushi Sogo Kenkyu Kiko, headed by Dr H. Jingu. The author would like to thank the group. 3 The survey was conducted among young mothers with the first child under six in Tokyo and non-metropolitan areas to compare their attitudes towards work and family. A total of 1,464 women were interviewed in Tokyo and the cities of Toyama and Takatsuki. The author was one of the research members involved in the survey. See Nihon Rodo Kenkyu Kiko (2003). 4 Hideo Jingu was the head of the research team. Kikuyo Aoki, Hiroshi Kojima, Yoshiko Kojima, Kenichi Narita, Masahiro Yamada and I were the other members of the research team.
References Higuchi, Y. (1992) Nihon Keizai to Shugyo Kodo (Japanese Economy and Work Behavior), Tokyo: Toyo Keizai. Higuchi, Y. and Abe, M. (1999) ‘Keizai hendo to josei no kekkon, shussan, shugyo no taimingu-kotei yoin to hendo yoin no bunseki’, (Timing of marriage, birth and work of women using panel data), in Y. Higuchi and M. Iwata (eds) Paneru Deta kara mita Gendai Josei-Kekkon, Shussan, Shugyo, Shohi, Chochiku (Panel Data and Women Today), Tokyo: Toyo Keizai. Iwagami, M. (1999) ‘20 dai 30 dai mikonsha no oya to no dobekkyo Kozo Bunseki-Dai 11 kai shussho doko kihon chosa dokushinsha chosa yori-’, (Singles in their 20’s and 30’s and their co-habitation with children using the 11th National Fertility Survey), National Institute of Population and Social Security Research, Journal of Population Problems, 55 (2): 17–29.
Attitudes towards marriage and child rearing 53 Iwasawa, M. (1999) ‘1990 nendai ni okeru joshi no patonashippu no henyo-’konyaku dokyogata’ kara ‘hikonnyaku hidokyogata’ e’ (The Transformation of Partnership of Japanese Women in the 1990’s: Increased Reluctance Towards Traditional Marriages and the Prevalence of Non-cohabiting Couples), National Institute of Population and Social Security Research, Journal of Population Problems, 55 (4): 1–15. Miyamoto, M., Iwagami, M. and Yamada, M. (1997) Mikonka Shakai no Oyako KankeiOkane to Aijo ni Miru Kaoku no Yukue (The Parent–child Relationship in the Declining Marriage Era – Where a Family is Heading, a Look at Money and Love), Tokyo: Yuhikaku. Nagase, N. (1997) ‘Wage Differentials and Labor Supply of Married Women in Japan: Part-time and Informal Sector Work Opportunities’, The Japanese Economic Review, 48 (1): 29–42. —— (1999) ‘Shoshika no yoin: shugyo kankyo ka kachikan no henka ka-kikonsha no shugyo keitai sentaku to shussan jiki no sentaku’ (Work and Child bearing Choice of Married Women in Japan: The Effect of Labor Practices), National Institute of Population and Social Security Research, Journal of Population Problems, 55 (4): 1–18. —— (2002) ‘Jakunenso no koyo no hiseikika to kekkon kodo’ (Marriage Timing and the Effect of Increase in Non-standard Employment Among the Youth in Japan), National Institute of Population and Social Security Research, Journal of Population Problems, 58 (2): 22–35. —— (2003) ‘Standard and non-standard work arrangements, pay difference and choice of work by Japanese mothers’, in S. Houseman and M. Osawa (eds) Nonstandard Work in Developed Economies: Cause and Consequences, Kalamazoo, MI: W. E. Upjohn Institute for Employment Research. pp. 267–306. —— (2004) ‘Hitenkeiteki koyosha ni taisuru shakaiteki hogo no genjo to kadai’ (Social Protection for Non-standard Workers), Quarterly Journal on Social Security, 40 (2): 116–126. Nakata, Y. and Mosk, C. (1987) ‘The Demand for College Education in Postwar Japan.’, Journal of Human Resources, 22 (3): 377–404. Nihon Rodo Kenkyu Kiko (2001) ‘Daitoshi wakamono no shugyo kodo to ishiki-hirogaru furita keiken to kyokan-’ (Urban youth, their work activity and attitudes – the increase in experience as ‘Freeters’ and sympathy towards such a work style) Japan Institute of Labor Report No. 146. —— (2003) ‘Ikuji kyugyo seido ni kansuru chosa kenkyu hokokusho-’Josei no shigoto to katei seikatsu ni kansuru kenkyu chosa kekka’ o chushin ni’ (Report on the child care leave system, using the results of the Survey on Women’s Work and Family Life) Japan Institute of Labor Report No. 157. Ono H. (2003) ‘Women’s Economic Standing, Marriage Timing and Cross-national Contexts of Gender’, Journal of Marriage and Family, 65: 275–286. Yamada, M. (1999) Parasaito Singuru no Jidai (The Age of the Parasite Single), Tokyo: Chikuma Shobo. Yashiro, N. (1999) Shoshi Koreika no Keizaigaku: Shijo Jushi no Keizai Kaikaku (The Economics of the Declining Birth and Ageing Society-Reform with Emphasis on Market Mechanisms), Tokyo: Toyokeizaishinposha.
4
Strong in tradition and yet innovative The puzzles of the Italian family Francesca Bettio
Introduction The contemporary Italian family is attracting scholarly interest beyond the country’s borders for fostering changes that are less marked elsewhere, or for obstinately resisting change. In the late 1980s, Italy attained the lowest level of fertility in the developed world. At present, the country has the highest rate of children who delay leaving their parental home. At the same time, it is successfully resisting trends that are a matter for concern elsewhere like single motherhood. Questions naturally arise as to how these developments may be related and whether they are transitory or relatively stable developments. I cannot address all or even most such questions in this short chapter. My principal aim here is, more modestly, to provide a broad overview of salient features of the contemporary Italian family from a comparative European perspective, with passing references to non-European countries including Japan. I shall also attempt to illustrate that an interdisciplinary approach is important for understanding some of the causal links between changing and persisting aspects of family life in Italy. To serve this purpose, I shall contrive an imaginary exchange between an economist, a demographer and a sociologist, each asked to single out the most distinctive traits of the family in present day Italy and to help resolve some key puzzles. The final paragraphs will gather the threads of this imaginary dialogue. An economist’s point of view Ask an Italian economist which characteristics currently single out the Italian family from that of most other industrialized countries and s/he will probably identify the coexistence of record low fertility and low female participation in the labour market. At the turn of the millennium, Italy recorded the lowest level of fertility within the (then) European Union, as well as the lowest rate of female participation or female employment, immediately preceded by Spain or Greece. According to the most recent figures, the situation had hardly changed by 2003 except for Greece overtaking Italy as the least fertile country in the EU15 (Figure 4.1 and Table 4.1).
The puzzles of the Italian family 55 2.0
Ireland
France
1.8
Finland
Total fertility rate, 2003
Denmark Netherlands United Kingdom
Sweden
Luxembourg Belgium
1.6
Portugal 1.4
Austria Germany Italy
Spain Greece Rsq = 0.3093
1.2 40
50
60
70
80
Female employment rate, 2003
Figure 4.1 Period fertility and female employment rate in EU countries, 2003.
Italy’s order in the ranking does not change when Japan and the United States of America are added to the EU15 group of nations (Table 4.1), thus suggesting that the country’s score is somewhat robust to the composition of the reference group of countries, provided the latter are sufficiently close in terms of economic development and GDP. However, it is interesting to note that in 2003, Italy shared with Japan the second lowest position in the fertility ranking. The best fitting cross-section relation between fertility and female employment within EU15 is linear and positive, and explains a little less than one third of the total variance in fertility rates, with statistical significance of the Pearson correlation level at the conventional level. As is well known, the a priori expectation from home economics is that women’s employment and the level of fertility go in opposite directions when different countries or different years for the same country are compared, provided that child ‘quality’ and the cost structure are broadly comparable. The positive relation in Figure 4.1 is evidence that high fertility countries are not systematically associated with low employment rates for women. Many economists would be tempted to dismiss this evidence, because it does not control for cohort effects within each country or for country-specific factors that may distort the ‘true’ relationship at any point of time. For example, I had
56
Francesca Bettio
Table 4.1 Fertility and women’s labour market participation in Europe, Japan and the United States
Sweden Denmark Netherlands Finland United Kingdom Austria Portugal Germany France Ireland Luxembourg Belgium Spain Greece Italy Japan United States of America
Period fertility rate, 2003
Female employement rate, 2003
Ranking employment
Ranking fertility
1.71 1.76 1.75 1.76 1.71 1.39 1.44 1.34 1.89 1.98 1.63 1.61 1.29 1.27 1.29 1.29
71.5 70.5 65.8 65.7 65.3 62.8 60.6 59.0 57.2 55.8 52.0 51.8 46.0 43.8 42.7 56.8
1 2 3 4 6 7 8 9 10 12 13 14 15 16 17 11
7 4 6 5 8 12 11 13 3 2 9 10 14 17 15/16 15/16
2.04
65.7
5
1
Sources: For European countries: Eurostat (Newcronos: Fertility Indicators; Employment Indicators); for Japan and the USA: Vital Statistics, US Bureau of Census and Rebick (this volume) for 2003 fertility rate estimates; OECD Labour Force Statistics for employment rates.
uncontrolled cohort effects in mind when, in my earlier work, I argued that there are (no longer) reasons to expect an ordered relationship across countries between fertility and women’s employment if fertility is measured by period fertility, that is, by an index that ‘synthesizes’ the concomitant behaviour of different cohorts of fertile women. This is because convergence of fertility levels to a narrow band around the replacement threshold of two children per woman leaves less room for adjustment to trends in participation. At such low levels of fertility, the burden of making motherhood more compatible with working life falls mainly on the timing of births. Since the latter varies across cohorts of women and is not necessarily synchronized across countries, an unordered relationship between concomitant changes in participation and period fertility can be observed . . . (Bettio and Villa 1998: 165–166) While this argument still holds, it is not so easy to dismiss the evidence that women’s employment and fertility are no longer negatively related across European countries on grounds that unaccounted country effects hide or distort the ‘true’ relation. Country-specific effects are found to be important (Kögel
The puzzles of the Italian family 57 2002), but they themselves ought to be explained consistently with the received theoretical wisdom, if the latter is to be accepted. Also, if we look at recent trends within rather than across countries, there is evidence that participation and fertility have not gone in opposite directions in some countries (e.g. Sweden or the United Kingdom), while they continued to behave as expected in others, such as Spain or Italy (Coleman and Chandola 1999). For many developed countries, moreover, the causal link between the two trends appears to have weakened starting with the mid-1980s (Engelhardt et al. 2001). In sum, explaining why Mediterranean countries, and Italy in particular, have consistently combined low participation and low fertility over the last 10 to 15 years is a challenge for theoretical economists and for scholars of comparative family studies. This challenge has generated a lively debate among economists, both in Italy and elsewhere (Ahn and Mira 2002, Brewster and Rindfuss 2000, De Laat and Sevilla-Sanz 2004, Del Boca 2002). Here, however, I shall deliberately neglect this debate for two reasons. As an economist, I find it more interesting to explore how related disciplines, like demography and sociology, might throw light on economists’ puzzles. Also, the debate among economists would unduly shift the emphasis from the family to the labour market, while the focus chosen for this chapter is the family. A demographer’s perspective How would an Italian demographer respond to the economist’s puzzle? Demographers are less faithful followers of home economics, and, although they have extensively used Becker’s theory to account for past demographic trends, they are likely to be less disturbed by the fact that the theory may need amendment.1 However, they would share with economists the concern over falling fertility and the idea that fertility is the key to an understanding of the Italian family from a comparative perspective. The central question to address for an Italian demographer would thus be related to, but different from that asked by economists and might be put as follows: the Italian family did respond to the post-war acceleration in the process of industrialization and rise in living standards with a rapid change in fertility behaviour, while it appears to oppose change in other respects. How can this singular combination of change and continuity be accounted for? And will it last? Among the countries of the old European Union, Italy still recorded the lowest (crude) rate of divorce, the lowest share of one-parent households and of young, one-person households (young ‘singles’) around 2002, as well as the second lowest rate of births out of wedlock (Table 4.2).2 Only those demographic indicators that are closely associated with the fertility decline have shown considerable change over the past decades. Age at first marriage and first pregnancy have been increasing fast and were close to or higher than the EU average by the end of the 1990s (Table 4.2); permanent childlessness also increased considerably and may well grow further: 18 per cent of women born in 1960 did not have children, as opposed to 12.8 for women born in 1940.
2.4 3.0 2.8 2.6 2.1 2.5 1.0 0.9 0.7 2.4 2.1 1.8 0.9 2.4 2.7
33.8 29.5 44.6 39.9 44.3 26.1 4.4 31.1 10.8 23.2 29.1 25.5 26.6 56.0 40.6
Births outside marriage per 100 births, 2002 27.4 26.7 29.6 28.5 28.1 27.2 26.6 27.9 27.4 27.7 28.2 25.9 27.8 30.1 27.2
Mean age of women at first marriage, 2000–2002
2.7 3.1 1.7 2.5 3.4 2.0 1.6 3.3 1.4 1.4 2.8 1.9 1.4 6.6 4.8
Share of one parent households, 2001 (ECHP) 28.18 28.47 29.9 29.59 29.4 28.8 28.9 30.6 30.3 29.5 30.4 28.8 30.7 30.1 28.7
Mean age of women at childbearing, 2000–2002
1.39 1.61 1.76 1.76 1.89 1.34 1.29 1.98 1.23 1.63 1.75 1.44 1.29 1.71 1.71
Period fertility rate, 2003
18.0 13.7 13.0 20.0 10.7 27.8 15.0 18.0 18.0 NA 18.0 5.0 12.0 13.0 21.5
Proportion of childless women, 1960–1964 cohort
Notes 2001 Crude divorce rate for Portugal; 1995 mean age for women at first marriage for Ireland; 1999 mean age at childbirth for Greece and belgium.
Sources: ECHP, eighth wave, own calculations; Eurostat: New Cronos, consulted March 2005.
Austria Belgium Denmark Finland France Germany Greece Ireland Italy Luxembourg Netherlands Portugal Spain Sweden UK
Crude divorce rate, 2000
Table 4.2 Demographic indicators for EU countries, 2001–2003
3.7 1.8 7.0 9.4 4.7 3.6 1.3 1.7 1.2 3.1 5.6 0.8 2.1 10.2 3.4
Share of young one person households, 2001 (ECHP)
The puzzles of the Italian family 59 Higher permanent childlessness might be taken to signal an important behavioural departure from a pattern characterizing until recently all Southern European countries, where rates of childlessness did not greatly exceed expectations of biological infertility (Tanturri and Mencarini 2003). However, it is still unclear how far voluntary childlessness accounts for this recent increase as opposed to ‘involuntary’ infertility due to postponement. Nor is the magnitude of the increase recorded for Italy so far exceptionally high within Southern Europe or old Europe at large.3 Overall, for a young Italian woman, the odds are still overwhelmingly in favour of marrying around the age of 27, without experiencing cohabitation or pregnancy prior to marriage and with only a 1 in 7 chance of subsequently experiencing divorce;4 furthermore, she may also be fairly confident that she will have at least 1 child with a legitimate spouse around the age of 30, while facing rather low prospects of building up a three-child family. In the language of demographers like Popenoe (1988), the Italian family appears to resist in important respects the so-called ‘de-institutionalization’, that is the tendency for ‘. . . . individual members [to be] more autonomous and less bound by the group and [for] the domestic group as a whole [to be] less cohesive’ (Popenoe 1988: 8). Followers of Lesthaeghe (1992) might prefer to view this same family as selectively resisting completion of the ‘second demographic transition’. According to Lesthaeghe, demographic change is driven by ‘postmaterialistic’ values rather than economic factors during the second demographic transition, and the latter features fertility fluctuations around replacement level alongside a pronounced decline of marriage in favour of cohabitation, rising prospects of marriage instability for those who marry, significant expansion of ‘atypical’ families including (voluntarily) childless couples, single parenthood and other variegated living arrangements. However, is the demographic behaviour that the Italian family displays truly distinctive in the European context? And should it be viewed as a mere expression of a yet not completed transition to a new demographic regime? In order to answer the first question, I obtained a summary picture of Italy’s comparative position in the current demographic scenario of EU countries applying the multidimensional scaling technique to the full set of demographic variables reported in Table 4.2.5 These are:6 ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ●
crude divorce rate births outside marriage per 100 births mean age of women at first marriage percentage share of single-parent households with at least 1 dependent child mean age of women at childbearing period fertility rate permanent childlessness among women born in 1960/1963 percentage share of young persons households (30 years or younger).
Figure 4.2 illustrates the results. In the figure, countries are positioned in the two dimensional space according to a synthetic measure of distance/proximity
60
Francesca Bettio 1.5
Denmark Finland
1.0
Luxemb
Germany .5 Netherl
Spain
Austria
Italy
0.0 France
Greece
Portugal
–.5
Dimension 2
Sweden UK –1.0
Belgium Ireland
–1.5 –3
–2
–1
0
1
2
3
Dimension 1
Figure 4.2 Multidimensional scaling of EU countries. Source: Euclidean distance model: 8 demographic variables 2001–2003.
based on the values of all the eight variables. Italy has minimal distances from Spain and Greece, with the three countries forming a cluster clearly separated from the rest. Portugal is closer to Italy, Greece or Spain than to any other country in the figure, but much less close than any of these three countries are to one another. The strongest suggestion from this scaling exercise is that Italy is not an isolated outlier in terms of demographic behaviour and belongs to a distinctive but broader geographical pattern, Mediterranean or Southern European. In the demographic and sociological literature, Southern European countries typically include Portugal alongside Greece, Italy and Spain. However, both in my previous research on fertility and female participation in the Mediterranean (Bettio and Villa 1998) and in this exercise, Portugal behaves somewhat idiosyncratically, with some similarities but also important differences from the three other countries. For this reason, I prefer to talk about a Mediterranean pattern that fully includes Greece, Italy and Spain.7 What the given exercise cannot reveal is whether this pattern is just a temporary state of disequilibrium along a path that will eventually converge to that of the other European countries or whether it is developing into a true demographic variant. This is a grand question that I do not, and cannot, pursue here. But it can be scaled down to a more manageable issue, namely whether the combination of
The puzzles of the Italian family 61 selective change and adherence to tradition that singles out the demography of Italy (and Spain or Greece) from that of other European countries is a distinctive mark of new and widespread family patterns, or a statistical artefact reflecting coexistence of modern and traditional families, with the former bound to eventually take over the latter. If we opt in favour of the statistical artefact, then demographic or economic puzzles should be treated as transitory phenomena that need neither new theories nor policy action; time alone would resolve puzzles and problems. If we take the alternative view, it makes sense to look closer into these new family forms in order to start answering unresolved puzzles. A sociologist’s point of view An Italian sociologist would argue against the statistical artefact hypothesis. In her/his view, the mixture of tradition and change that the Italian (Mediterranean) family exhibits is actually generating new patterns that may well be passed over to future generations. The so-called ‘long family’ is arguably the most important of these ‘new’ patterns and refers to the tendency for young children to remain with their parents well into adult life. A closer look into the long family is thus warranted before I go back to the questions raised by economists and demographers. Figure 4.3 reports the share of young people still living with their parents in each EU15 member country, except Sweden. Italy records the highest or second highest share, no matter which age group is chosen; 81.3 per cent of young Italians aged 20 to 29 still live with their parents compared to 42.7 per cent in the United Kingdom, 35.2 per cent in the Netherlands and 29 per cent in Denmark and Finland. The gaps widen and become even more salient for people in their early thirties. Among young people in their late twenties (24–29), 75.3 per cent still live with their parents in Italy, as do 45.6 per cent of those in their early thirties. The corresponding figures are 26.5 per cent and 8.4 per cent for the United Kingdom, and 11.9 per cent and 3.2 per cent for Denmark! Also, young Spanish, Greeks or Portuguese do not differ too much from young Italians, lending further support to the suggestion that Italy belongs to a Mediterranean or Southern European cluster rather than behaving as an isolated outlier.8 The ‘long family’ is a relatively recent phenomenon that first attracted sociologists’ attention in the late 1980s in Italy (Cavalli 1993, Donati 1989, Scabini and Donati 1988), and is now widely researched by demographers and economists as well. It was soon recognized as a development that typifies Mediterranean countries and Portugal, but the trend towards delayed home leaving is common to several European countries as well as the United States of America (Aassve et al. 2001, Aassve et al. 2002, Bettio and Villa 1998, Cherlin et al. 1997, Fernandez Cordon 1997, Goldscheider 1997, Schmidt 1990) and has become sufficiently conspicuous in Japan to inspire parallels with Italy (Dalla Zuanna et al. 1998, Ogawa et al., Chapter 2, this volume, Rebick and Takenaka, Chapter 1, this volume). The contours of this phenomenon are relatively well known in Italy by now (as well as Spain or Japan) thanks to repeated surveys and plentiful research (Table 4.3). First, there are regional variations that are plausibly accounted for by
62
Francesca Bettio 10.3
Finland 2.8
Denmark
29
1.6
Netherlands
Age 30–34 Age 20–29
28.7
36.2
UK
8.4
Luxembourg
9.6
42.7 49.4 15.3
France
54.5
21.3
Austria
59.4
22.5
Germany
61.9
17.4
Belgium
70.3
Portugal
36.9
Greece
35.8
73.1 78.8 46.4
Spain
80.5
36.6
Ireland
81.1 45.6
Italy 0
20
40
81.9
60
80
100
Percentage share
Figure 4.3 Adult children living with their parents, by age, 2001. Source: ECHP sample for Italy (2001).
economic and social differences. With reference to the core group aged 20–34, the share of co-residing children varies from around 67 per cent in the Northern and central Italian regions to around 71 per cent in Southern regions. However, regional differences are no stronger than gender differences within each region, with a consistent over-representation of men among the ‘stayers’. Prevailing characteristics also vary with gender and across age groups, but if we refer to average values for the 20–34 year olds, we find that: ●
● ●
the overwhelming majority of adult children co-residing with their parents never married (95.9 per cent), the opposite being true for non-co-residing young adults co-residing adult children are better educated a considerable share of co-residing adult children are engaged in some form of paid work (51.1 per cent), and more still are able to count on their own income (63 per cent among men), but the corresponding figures for the non co-residing are considerably higher
The puzzles of the Italian family 63 Table 4.3 Characteristics of population in age group 20–34 – ECHP sample for Italy (2001)a % Share
Living with parents
Not living with parents
Share women Share never married Share having completed less than secondary education Share in paid workb and working ⬎15 hrs per week Share unemployed Share with permanent employment contract among all in paid workb and working ⬎15 hrs Share with no (own) income among men
44.7 95.9 27.0
60.1 22.3 43.0
55.1
65.6
19.1 61.1
7.2 65.8
37.0
10.3
Source: ECHP eighth wave; own calculations. Notes a Data are weighted. b paid work comprises paid employment, paid apprenticeship, paid training, self employment.
●
●
potential employment instability is higher for co-residing children in paid work. The simple indicator of instability adopted here is the share of ‘atypical’ employment among those in paid work (non-permanent employee contracts, trainee positions, self-employment etc.) finally, unemployment is disproportionately concentrated among co-residing children.
The fact that co-residing children tend to be better educated and yet better represented among the unemployed or atypical job holders is the net outcome of opposing tendencies. On the one hand the vast majority of students in Italy co-reside with their family until completion of college education, which tends to raise the educational level of the ‘stayers’. On the other hand the risk of unemployment or of holding atypical jobs tends to be lower among the better educated – although this is not consistently true across gender, age groups and regions. Given that unemployment and job instability have been found to significantly deter home leaving (Aassve et al. 2001), the better educated can be expected to leave the parental home more quickly once they have completed formal education. However, because of the sheer size of the student population the first tendency is likely to be dominant when the analysis concerns stocks rather than flows, as in Table 4.3. To throw some light on the bare figures of Table 4.3, let me first summarize the range of reasons that young Italians explicitly give for the delay in leaving the parental home, based on the telephone survey conducted by the Population Research Institute (PRI) in 1998 on a large sample of 20–34 year olds.9
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Francesca Bettio
The following five disadvantages of leaving home were cited most frequently: ● ● ● ● ●
economic disadvantages (higher costs: 53 per cent) housework (45 per cent) cooking (29 per cent) ironing (16 per cent) cleaning and tidying up (11 per cent).10
When the interviewee was asked to identify motivations that would induce her/him to leave the parental home, the most popular answers were: ● ● ● ● ●
to marry or cohabit (43 per cent) to work (35 per cent) to gain independence from parental family (33 per cent) to have own family (13 per cent) to meet the challenge (10 per cent), . . . but only if the following conditions were met:
● ● ● ● ●
having a stable job (56 per cent) being able to count on adequate monthly income (56 per cent) be married (46 per cent) having a place to live (39 per cent) being able to preserve living standard (18 per cent).
Perceived reasons given in responding to these types of questions should not be taken at face value, if only because the findings can vary from one survey to the next, depending on how the questions are phrased. Nevertheless, they provide a useful introduction to a more scholarly search for causal factors. Four such factors are most frequently cited in the literature as independent determinants of the long family, namely tight housing markets, rising educational standards, nature of welfare provisions and gender roles. A not too dissimilar set of factors is alleged to delay marriage decisions in Japan (Nagase, Chapter 3, Ogawa et al. Chapter 2, this volume). Tight housing markets raise the cost of setting up independent living arrangements and have been found to discourage home leaving (Ermisch 1999, Giannelli and Monfardini 2000, Haurin et al. 1993, Martinez-Granado and Ruiz-Castillo 2002). Rising educational standards may also delay economic independence favouring cohabitation with parents, depending on the school system. In the Italian context where school fees are generally low, including university fees, and attending school or college is compatible with commuting (no campuses), sharing accommodation with parents considerably lowers the overall costs of additional years of schooling. However, tight housing markets have been recently experienced elsewhere in Europe, and educational standards have also risen elsewhere, including countries with school systems not too dissimilar from that in
The puzzles of the Italian family 65 Italy. It is thus open to question how far these factors can account for the comparative position of Italy, Spain, Greece or Portugal. By contrast, Italy shares with other Southern European or Mediterranean countries a distinctive welfare system (Esping-Andersen 1999, Ferrera 1996, Flaquer 2000, Jurado and Naldini 1997, Trifiletti 1998 and Chapter 11, this volume). Extensive welfare provisions offering safety nets to those who are unable to earn an independent living hardly exist in Italy. Selected (and generous) provisions are in place only for segments of labour market insiders, for example, workers made redundant or older employees of large firms threatened with lay-offs at ages close to retirement. The beneficiaries are still disproportionately adult men, since labour market provisions have traditionally been designed with the main male breadwinner family in mind. He was to be protected so that he could pass on welfare benefits to his wife and children. The family thus acquired the role of income insurance agency, and still retains it, despite the fact that two-income families are now common. I would argue that, from children’s point of view, the specific advantage of family versus state- or market-based income insurance is that the former is more generous and offers greater protection from the risk of an even temporary fall in living standards. Moreover, the safety net afforded by the family operates on a preventive basis, that is, not only are children sheltered when searching for a job; they are also encouraged to continue searching until finding an ‘adequate’ job (wait unemployment). Similarly, they are discouraged from leaving home if this implies a fall in their overall standard of living. In the Mediterranean setting, where young entrants into the labour market bear disproportionate risks of unemployment or of ‘atypical’ employment, they are likely to be commensurably discouraged from leaving the family nest. This is especially the case where labour market segmentation along age lines is sharper and where parents are more able to uphold the standards of living of their children. There is a clear parallel with Japan in this respect, where deteriorating labour market prospects for graduates and increase in non-standard employment among young people are reported to delay home leaving as well as marriage (Nagase, Chapter 3, Ogawa et al. Chapter 2, Rebick, Chapter 5, this volume). Recent econometric research is consistent with these contentions, at least in part. After controlling for a large number of personal and household characteristics, Aassve et al. (2001) and Becker et al. (2002) confirm that in Italy, unemployment and job insecurity reduce children’s chances of leaving home, whereas father’s unemployment increases it. Nagase and Rebick (Chapter 3 and 5, this volume) report similar findings for Japan that irregular employment and/or decreasing opportunities for young graduates contribute to postponing marriage. However, there are significant gender effects: Aassve et al. (2001) find that for male children in Italy, leaving home is conditional on finding a stable job, not simply a job, whereas for women, the key determinant is partnership formation since, presumably, they are also counting on the resources of the partner. This is exactly the same as the situation in Japan (Nagase Chapter 3, this volume).
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Gender differences nicely introduce the last factor that may account for the long family in Italy, namely rigidity of gender and parental roles in relation to housework and care work. If children take a modest part in housework and care work, then cooking meals, paying bills, tidying up their own room, arranging for medical appointments and so on represent ‘non-transferable resources’, that is resources that are largely lost when leaving the parental home. Alternatively, a mother’s housework and care services may be thought as a ‘public good’ inducing children to stay, as Diaz and Guillo (2005) argue. Availability of nontransferable resources has been shown to significantly hinder parental-home leaving in the Netherlands (De Jong et al. 1991), and this resonates with the evidence for Italy from the IRP survey quoted earlier. It makes sense therefore to hypothesize that, where quality or quantity of housework and care are higher and/or less equally shared between parents and children, children have a greater incentive to stay with their parents. In all plausibility, this is the case in Italy as well as other Mediterranean countries. In Italy, feminism did not gradually build up but took the country by storm in the 1970s. By the late 1980s, however, the fire of the movement had died down, with most of the efforts having gone into the right to abortion and equal opportunities at the work place. The intra-household division of labour was much talked about, but remained a private battle, which, it was hoped, would naturally turn in favour of women as they gained economic independence. It has, but not enough. Also, traditional standards of care expected from women have not been questioned and remain high at present, since sharing them was all that seemed to matter. Truly comparable data on the amount of hours devoted by men and women to housework and care work are not frequent, but whatever comparative evidence is available tends to place Italian women at the top of the ranking. I have constructed an indicator of unpaid care for the 14 European countries participating in the ECHP survey, as well as a measure of the gender gap in this indicator. The indicator is the number of adults devoting at least two hours daily to caring for children and/or adults, divided by the number of dependants, namely children under 16 and elderly over 70. A standardized average for this indicator between 1994 and 1996 may be constructed, with 100 set at the top value and 0 at the bottom. The values are: 100 for Italy, 80.7 for the Netherlands and Greece, 72.8 for the United Kingdom, 68.3 for Spain, 65.6 for Germany, 58.9 for Austria, 53.4 for Ireland, 47.7 for Luxembourg, 47.7 for Belgium, 43.8 for Denmark, 27.7 for Finland, 22.6 for Portugal and 0 for France.11 Also, Italy records the third highest value for the female–male gap in this indicator, after Ireland and Greece. With regard to the sharing of tasks between children and parents, the above quoted IRP survey as well as the results from the national Multiscopo Survey (ISTAT 2000) report that adult children living with their parents contribute rather selectively to housework, especially if they are male and employed. Contribution to housework is, in fact, the main source of conflicts between parents and co-residing children according to most surveys on delayed home leavers in Italy.
The puzzles of the Italian family 67
Gathering the threads I can now go back to the questions raised by economists and demographers enriched by the insights from sociologists. The long family reconciles tradition and change, low fertility and strong ‘tastes’ for children, cohesion and independence between children and parents in ways that complement each other. As such, it is a potentially viable scenario from a demographic perspective. However, although the long family evolved out of a clear set of received values it was sustained by specific economic incentives, like tight markets for rented accommodation, or highly selective welfare benefits that only the family could redistribute, for example weak income support schemes for first job seekers versus generous employment related pensions. Should such incentives change, the long family pattern will change. This is an incomplete and perhaps obvious answer to demographers’ questions about transition, but nevertheless provides a starting point. Now reconsider the economist’s puzzle about the coexistence of very low fertility and low female participation in Italy. In regard to fertility, I would argue that long (and cohesive) families raise the cost of children to parents and, to use a concept dear to home economics, decisively tilt the quantity/quality trade off against quantity and in favour of quality. On the one hand, rigidity of gender and parental roles in the sharing of housework and care tasks means that the longer children stay with parents, the higher the demands that each child makes on her/his mother’s time over the life cycle. Moreover, given the role of the family as an income pooling and an income insurance agent, the expected monetary cost of children to both parents tends to be higher the longer children stay at home, since they have been found to contribute relatively little to family finances even when they are working (see the above quoted IRP and ISTAT surveys). On the other hand, Italian parents appear to enjoy having their children around the house and to suffer when the latter depart. In this respect, delayed home leaving compensates parents for keeping the number of children low. From the point of view of parents, therefore, few children and long families are ‘complements’. This rigidity of gender and parental role does not, however, entirely conform to received notions of patriarchy, as some authors imply. McDonald (2000), for example, draws on the parallel between patriarchal family organizations and cultural settings where children are denied rights of their own to argue that restricted rights for children and the low value placed on the latter end up inhibiting fertility. While children in the Mediterranean may formally enjoy fewer legal rights than elsewhere or be relatively penalized in the labour market, this hardly reflects their actual standing in the family according to opinion surveys, perceptions of youth themselves or the informed view of many scholars (e.g. Palomba 2001). Ariès’ syndrome of ‘child king’ (Ariès 1980) sounds closer to the daily family experience in the Mediterranean than some traditional expression of patriarchy. There are other ways in which long (and cohesive) families may inhibit fertility, for example, by discouraging births out of wedlock among young people, a development that is boosting fertility in high fertility countries like the United
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Kingdom. What I want to stress is that the inhibiting influence of the long family on fertility ought to operate at any level of labour force participation of women. If this is correct, the long family goes part of the way towards explaining economists’ puzzle. This resonates, in part, with Ogawa’s contention for Japan (Chapter 2, this volume) that ‘. . . . the main source of recent fertility reduction lies in the increase in the proportion of young singles . . . ’ where singles refers to unmarried people and includes adult children living with their parents. In addition, there are reasons to believe that where weak public welfare provisions are in place, a ‘long family’ might also be inhibiting female participation, though this involves a more speculative kind of argument. Delayed home leaving keeps within the family the production of household goods and services that might otherwise be bought in the market if children experienced independent living, and experimented with less structured family forms before forming their own nuclei. Because market production (or public supply) of substitutes for housework and care services tend to be female intensive activities, failure to ‘export’ such goods and services to the market or the public sector may hinder growth in female employment (Bettio and Plantenga 2004; Freeman and Schettkat 2005). It is easy to recognize that the long family is only one of the possible causal links in the low fertility–low participation chain for Italy if only because one key actor, the labour market, was deliberately neglected, except for selected references. However, I did not set myself the task of providing a comprehensive understanding. I simply meant to show that an interdisciplinary perspective can be fertile if the aim is to understand complex and evolving institutions like contemporary families.
Notes 1 The proceedings of the conference ‘La bassa fecondità tra costrizioni economiche e cambio di valori’ held in Roma at the Accademia dei Lincei on 15–16 May 2003 are a representative and very good collection of demographers’ latest findings and multiple approaches. See Breschi and Bacci (2003). 2 Contrary to some popular images, low fertility has characterized some regions of Northern Italy also in the past. In regions like Piedmont the final number of descendants for women born in 1920 was already below replacement level (1.71 children per woman), although it rose to 1.82 among women born in 1940 (Terra Abrami and Sorvillo 1993: table 2). Significant differences still exist between the North and the South, although convergence is enhanced by continuing decline in the South and a (slight) recent reversal of the trend in the North. However, it is still unclear how much this reversal in Northern regions owes to the expected ‘catching up’ effect of cohorts having previously postponed birth, a genuine increase in the final number of descendants of native women, or higher fertility of recent migrant groups (see previous footnote for references). 3 The proportion of childless women for the cohort born in 1940 is 10.8 for the United Kingdom, 14.3 for Finland, 12.4 for the Netherlands, 4.7 for Ireland, 12.8 for Italy, 13.1 for Sweden, 8.7 for Belgium, 9.8 for Denmark, 8.0 for Spain, 8.4 for France and 5.6 for Portugal (Eurostat: New Cronos 2005). Compared to the values for the cohorts born between 1960–1964 the (simple) average increase for this group of countries is 5 percentage points, with Italy and Spain recording 5.2 and 4 points, respectively. 4 In 2001 (latest year available) the estimated number of divorces per 100 marriages was still 15.4 in Italy as compared to 69.6 in Belgium, 60.2 in Austria or 58.8 in Sweden (Eurostat: New Cronos 2005).
The puzzles of the Italian family 69 5 Multidimensional scaling is a set of data analysis techniques where each object (in this case each country) is represented by a point in a multidimensional space, usually a two or three dimensional space. The points are arranged in the space in such a way that the distances between pairs of points have the strongest possible relation to the similarities among the corresponding pair of objects. In the above exercise distances are Euclidean metric distances and the programme used is ASCAL in SPSS release 10–1. The use I make here of multidimensional scaling is purely descriptive, also because ASCAL cannot be utilized for inferential purposes. For an introduction to multidimensional scaling see Schiffman et al. (1981). 6 Two variables (per cent share of single parent household and of young, one-person households) are derived from own processing of ECHP eighth wave. 7 Significant differences between Portugal on the one hand and Italy, Spain and Greece on the other exist also in terms of welfare provisions and family policy. Because of these differences Flaquer (2000:13) also speaks of a Mediterranean Welfare Model comprizing Italy, Spain and Greece in lieu of a broader but more diversified Southern European Model. The fact that these four Southern European countries share a sufficiently distinctive welfare system (Trifiletti, Chapter II, this volume) is an important factor accounting for similarities in female labour market and fertility. 8 The source for the figures in Figure 4.3 and Table 4.3 are microdata from the European Community Household Panel (ECHP) eighth wave and the calculations are my own. The eighth wave is the latest and last available from this source before transition to the larger panel called EU-SILC. A degree of caution on the reliability of these figures is in order, given that they are based on microdata. However, I checked my data against those based on the second ECHP wave reported in Aassve et al. (2002: Table 2) and I found no major difference in the age structure, sex, civil status, education and employment status with the data of my own extraction for the same wave. 9 Please note that all these survey questions allowed for multiple answers, thus frequencies do not sum to 100. The survey results are reported in Bonifazi et al.(1999: 60–63) for the figures reported here. 10 Note that in this case the least frequent disadvantages also include emotional loss, loneliness, lack of protection, higher responsibilities and ‘other’. 11 The ranking itself is not entirely stable from one survey year to the next, although the basic picture consistently shows Mediterranean countries plus the Netherlands and the United Kingdom at the top of this ranking. Note, however, that the high score by the United Kingdom and the Netherlands is likely to reflect intensive mother’s services in the first infancy rather than adolescence or adulthood, although available data are too gross to prove this latter point. For further details see Bettio and Plantenga (2004: values reported there refer to 1996).
References Aassve, A., Billari, F. and Ongaro, F. (2001) ‘The Impact of Income and Employment Status on Leaving Home: Evidence From the Italian ECHP Sample’, Labour 15(3): 501–529. Aassve, A., Burgess S., Chesher, A. and Propper, C. (2002) ‘Transition From Home to Marriage Among Young Americans’, Journal of Applied Econometrics,17: 1–23. Ahn, N. and Mira, P. (2002) ‘A Note on the Changing Relationship Between Fertility and Female Employment Rates in Developed Countries’, Journal of Population Economics, 15(4): 667–682. Ariès, P. (1980) ‘Two Successive Motivations for Declining Birth Rates in the West’, Population and Development Review 6(4): 645–650. Becker, S. O., Bentolilla, S., Fernandes, A. and Ichino A. (2002) ‘Job insecurity and children’s emancipation: The Italian puzzle’, presented at the ESSLE CEPR-IZA meeting, Ammersee, September.
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Bettio, F. and Plantenga, J. (2004) ‘Care Regimes in Europe’, Feminist Economics, 10(1): 85–113. Bettio, F. and Villa, P. (1998) ‘A Mediterranean Perspective on the Break-Down of the Relationship Between Participation and Fertility’, Cambridge Journal of Economics, 22(2): 131–137. Bonifazi, C., Menniti, A., Misiti, M. and Palomba, R. (1999) ‘Giovani che non lasciano il nido’, Working Paper 01/99, Roma, Instituto di Ricerca sulla Polazione (IRP). Breschi, M. and Bacci, M. L. (eds) (2003) La Bassa Fecondità Italiana tra Costrizioni Economiche e Cambio di Valori, Udine: Forum. Brewster, K. and Rindfuss, L. (2000) ‘Fertility and Women’s Employment in Industrialized Countries’, Annual Review of Sociology, 26: 271–296. Cavalli, A. (1993) ‘Senza nessuna fretta di crescere’, Il Mulino, XLII (345): 35–42. Cherlin, A., Scabini, E. and Rossi, G. (eds) (1997) ‘Delayed Homeleaving in Europe and the US’, Journal of Family Issues, 18 (special issue): 608–626. Coleman, D. and Chandola, T. (1999) ‘Britain’s place in European population’, in S. McRae (ed.) Changing Britain, Oxford: Oxford University Press: 37–67. Dalla Zuanna, G., Atoh, M., Castiglioni, M. and Kojima, K. (1998) ‘Le mariage tardif chez les jeunes: les cas de l’Italie et du Japon’, Genus 54(3–4): 187–232. De Jong Gierveld, J., Liefbroer, A. C. and Beemink, E. (1991) ‘The Effect of Parental Resources on Patterns of Leaving Home Among Young Adults in the Netherlands’, European Sociological Review, 7: 55–71. De Laat, J. and Sevilla-Sanz, A. (2004) Working Women, Men’s Home Time and LowestLow Fertility in Europe, mimeo, Brown University Online. Available http://www.creato.no/ espe 2004/sider/pdf/sevilla.pdf (Accessed March 2005). Del Boca, D. (2002) The Effect of Childcare and Part-Time on Participation and Fertility of Italian Women, Journal of Population Economics, 15(3): 549–573. Diaz, A. and Guillo, M. D. (2005) ‘Family Ties and Labour Supply’, Investigaciones Economicas, 29(2): 289–329. Donati, P. (ed.) (1989) Primo Rapporto sulla Famiglia in Italia, Centro Internazionale Studi Famiglia, Milano: Edizioni Paoline. Engelhardt, H., Kogel, T. and Prskawetz, A. (2001) Fertility and Female Employment Reconsidered, MPIDR Working Paper WP 2001–021, Rostock, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research. Ermisch, J. (1999) ‘Prices, Parents and Young People’s Household Formation’, Journal of Urban Economics, 45(1): 47–71. Esping-Andersen, G. (1999) Social Foundations of Postindustrial Economies, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Eurostat, New Cronos. Online. Available http://epp.eurostat.cec.eu.int/portal/page?_ pageid ⫽ 1090,30070682,1090_30298591&_dad ⫽ portal&_schema ⫽ PORTAL (Accessed March 2005). Fernandez Cordon, N. J. (1997) ‘Youth Residential Independence and Autonomy: A Comparative Study’, Journal of Family Issues, 16(6): 567–607. Ferrera, M. (1996) ‘The Southern Model of Welfare in Social Europe’, Journal of European Social Policy, 6(1): 17–37. Flaquer, L. (2000) ‘Family policy and welfare state in Southern Europe’, Working Paper no. 185, Institut de Ciències Polítiques i Socials, Barcelona: Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona. Freeman, R. and Schettkat, R. (2005) ‘Marketization of Household Production and the EU-US Gap in Work’, Economic Policy, 20(41): 6–50.
The puzzles of the Italian family 71 Giannelli, G. C. and Monfardini, C. (2000) ‘A Nest or a Golden Cage? Family Co-residence and Human Capital Investment Decisions of Young Adults’, International Journal of Manpower, 21(2–3): 227–245. Goldscheider, F. K. (1997) ‘Recent Changes in US Young Adult Living Arrangements in Comparative Perspective’, Journal of Family Issues, 18 (special issue): 708–724. Haurin, D. R., Henderschott, P. H. and Kim, D. (1993) ‘The Impact of Real rents and Wages on Household Formation’, Review of Economics and Statistics, 75: 284–293. ISTAT (2000) Le Strutture Familiari, Roma: Collana Informazioni no. 17. Jurado Guerrero, T. and Naldini, M. (1997) ‘Is the South so different? Italian and Spanish families in comparative perspective’, in M. Rhodes (ed.) Southern European Welfare States Between Crises and Reform, London and Portland: Frank Cass, 42–66. Kögel, T. (2002) Did the Association between Fertility and Female Employment Within OECD Countries Really Change its Sign?, MPIDR Working Paper WP 2001/034, Rostock, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research. Lesthaeghe, R. (1992) ‘The second demographic transition in Western countries: an interpretation’, paper presented at the IUSSP and IRP Conference Gender and Family Change in Industrialized Countries, Roma: 26–30 January. McDonald, P. (2000) ‘Gender Equity, Social Institutions and the Future of Fertility’, Journal of Population Research, 17(1): 1–16. Martinez-Granado, M. and Ruiz-Castillo, J. (2002) ‘The Decision of Spanish Youth: A Cross-Section Study’, Journal of Population Economics, 15(2): 305–330. Palomba, R. (2001) ‘Postponement in family formation in Italy within the Southern European context’, paper presented at the IUSSP Conference International Perspectives on Low Fertility: Trends, Theories and Policies, Tokyo: 21–23 March. Popenoe, D. (1988) Disturbing the Nest: Family Change and Decline in Modern Societies, New York: Aldine de Gruyter. Scabini, E. and Donati, P. (eds) (1988) ‘La famiglia “lunga” del giovane adulto’, Studi Interdisciplinari sulla Famiglia, no. 7, Milano: Vita e Pensiero. Schiffman, S. S., Reynolds, M. L. and Young, F. W. (1981) Introduction to Multidimensional Scaling, New York: Academic Press. Schmidt, L. (1990) ‘Jovens: Familia, Dinheiro, Autonomia’, Analize Social, XXV (108–109): 645–673. Tanturri, M. L. and Mencarini, L. (2003) ‘Il mistero della donna senza figli: i risultati di un’indagine ad hoc’, in Breschi and Bacci (eds) La Bassa Fecondità Italiana tra Costrizioni Economiche e Cambio di Valori, Udine: Forum, 107–126. Terra Abrami, V. and Sorvillo, M. P. (1993) ‘La Fecondité en Italie et dans ses régions: analyse par périod et par génération’, Population 48(3): 733–751. Trifiletti, R. (1998) ‘Southern European Welfare Regimes and the Worsening Position of Women’, Journal of European Social Policy 9(1): 49–64.
Part III
The shifting gender balance
5
Changes in the workplace and their impact on the family Marcus Rebick
Introduction This chapter examines the changing relationship between the family and the workplace. Conditions of work, of course, have a very important influence on the family. Working hours will determine how much time is available for family interaction, and when it can take place. Pay levels will determine the family’s standard of living, but also affect the economic position of individual household members. If women have access to the same kinds of jobs as men, then their general economic position including their bargaining strength within marriage is strengthened. Higher levels of pay will attract individuals into work who might otherwise remain at home. Career ambitions may delay the decision to marry and have children. At the same time, the shape and size of the family has an impact on the labour market. Smaller families with fewer children free up time that can be spent at work. Individuals with fewer siblings may have a greater burden placed upon them at the point that their elderly parents need care and find it difficult to work. Workplaces are pressured to respond to changes taking place in family structure in order to accommodate the needs of their employees. This chapter does not aim to provide an overview of the relationship between work and family that exists in Japan. It is assumed that the reader is familiar with the general patterns, including the secondary position of women in the labour market and the high levels of job protection that have existed up to this point. I also do not attempt to explain all of the changes that are taking place in the workplace, focussing only on those changes over the past twenty years that are likely to have a major impact on family life. I begin with those changes that are primarily due to changes in the economic environment. These include the decline of the family-run firm, the increase in part-time employment and the poor labour market for youth. I then turn to efforts that have been made to improve the status of women in the workplace and their impact, especially the Equal Employment Opportunity Laws of 1986 and 1999. In the final main section, I turn to efforts that have been made to improve the work–life balance in Japan.
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The effect of the economic environment The Japanese economy reached a major turning point in 1992. Between 1975 and 1991, the economy had grown in real terms at an average annual rate of just over 4 per cent. Between 1992 and 2003, the average growth rate was a mere 1.2 per cent. The period since 1992 has been called variously ‘the lost decade’ (Yoshikawa 2002) to emphasize that Japan lost the opportunity for the greater wealth that would have come with higher growth or ‘the great Japanese recession’ (Kuttner et al. 2001). Initially it appeared that the bursting of the asset bubble in 1990 and ineffective government macroeconomic policy were the two most important factors. As the recession dragged on, however, the view became widespread that the institutional features of the Japanese economy, such as ‘life-time employment’, the close relationships between firms and banks and cross-shareholding between firms, were largely to blame for the low growth rates. In any case, the belief in the superior growth performance of the Japanese form of stakeholder capitalism, has faded away (Katz 1998, Porter and Takeuchi 1999). The most obvious direct effect of the recession on families has been due to the increase in the unemployment rate, which climbed from an average of 2.5 per cent in the 1980s to a fifty-year high of 5.4 per cent in 2002. The two groups that have been most severely affected are youth under age 25 and workers over 45 years in age, especially those without a university degree. There has been a sharp cutback in hiring of new school graduates and an increase in the numbers of middle-aged employees forced into early retirement. The system of guaranteed employment will likely survive in Japan, especially in the more successful firms and industries, but the proportion of employees who are covered by these guarantees will fall (Rebick 2005). The slowdown in the Japanese economy has had a major effect on family life in Japan.1 I begin by looking at the family-run enterprise.
The decline of the small family-run firm One of the noted characteristics of both Japan and Italy, compared with many other OECD countries, is the high concentration of employment in small and family-run enterprises (OECD 2003, Patrick and Rohlen 1987). Over the period since the end of the American Occupation, however, the proportion of Japanese that are either self-employed or employed as unpaid family workers has been in decline. Figure 5.1 shows the trends over this period. The decline in self-employment and family work has been most dramatic for women, the majority of whom are family workers. While much of this decline is due to the falling rate of employment in agriculture, Figure 5.1 shows that the same trend is taking place outside of agriculture. Outside of agriculture one can break the trends into three periods. There is a very rapid decline up to the mid-1960s, followed by a period of relative stability up to the mid-1980s. From the late 1980s, the rate of decline increases, and is especially rapid in the case of women. Measuring of the extent of self-employment is notoriously difficult (Aronson 1991), and some of the decline could be a statistical artefact. Small family
Changes in the workplace 77 80
Men Women Men, Non-agricultural Women, Non-agricultural
70 60 50 40 30 20
2005
2000
1995
1990
1985
1980
1975
1970
1965
1960
0
1955
10
Year
Figure 5.1 Self-employed and family workers as a percentage of those working.
businesses may choose to incorporate the family members onto a formal payroll as employees. If this was an important trend, we should expect to see an increase in the proportion of employees working in very small companies. According to the Labour Force Survey, in 1990, 7.6 per cent of all employees worked in businesses with fewer than five employees. In 2002 this had barely risen to 8 per cent, suggesting that while there may be some movement to incorporate family businesses, the bulk of the trend is due to self-employed or family workers leaving their jobs at a faster rate than new employment is being generated in family-run businesses. The main cause of the long-run trend away from family-run enterprises has been the declining share of agricultural employment in Japan. Nevertheless, as we have seen, there has also been a long-run trend away from family-run enterprises outside of agriculture which has accelerated since the late 1980s. This latter decline may be attributed to two factors. The first comes from the observation that many of today’s family-run enterprises have no heir who is able or willing to take over the running of the firm after the retirement of the older generation. This in turn is partly due to the smaller size of the family and is related to the rapid decline in the fertility rate that took place in the early 1950s. It is also due to the fact that today’s youth are better educated and may find outside work alternatives that are more attractive than remaining with the family firm. A second factor that has been particularly important since the late 1980s has been the deregulation in many industries along with the economic downturn of
78 Marcus Rebick the 1990s. Deregulation has removed many of the protections previously enjoyed by smaller businesses that enabled them to survive downturns in business conditions. One of the areas where this has been most evident has been in the retail sector. Prior to 1994, the Large Store Act impeded the establishment of retail stores larger than 500 square metres. The definition of a large store was narrowed in 1994 to mean more than 1000 square metres and the Act was finally repealed in 1998. This is undoubtedly one of the causes of the decline in the number of small family-run retail stores (Flath 2003). At the same time, there has been an increase in the numbers of large stores (1994 definition), especially speciality super stores. In the alcohol retail business, deregulation since the late 1980s has increasingly allowed for the sale of alcohol outside of licensed specialized liquor stores. As convenience stores and supermarkets have taken over much of the trade, so family-run liquor stores have been pushed out of business (Nitta 2003). A third factor that is important for the decline in small stores in the retail sector has been the more widespread ownership of automobiles (Flath 2003). Car usage for shopping trips has increased in Japan and Flath (2003) shows that in those prefectures where car ownership has increased the most, the decline in small retail stores has been the most pronounced. Finally, many smaller businesses that acted as suppliers to larger firms in manufacturing, have seen their business move abroad as large firms have developed cheaper supply networks in countries with lower labour costs. This is part of the ‘hollowing out’ of Japanese manufacturing. Growth of part-time employment The decline in the family-run business has had especially important implications for the role of women. I should note that this decline in family work has not been associated with a decline in female participation in the labour force. To the contrary, women’s employment to population ratio between the ages of 16 and 64 has shown a small increase from 56 per cent to 57 per cent between 1990 and 2004, despite the recession. This is above the average for the European Union, and substantially higher than the rate for Italy, which is barely 40 per cent. Nevertheless, the family business provided a form of employment that allowed women the flexibility to look after household matters including raising children while working part-time. With a decline in these opportunities, it would be natural for many women to seek part-time work as a substitute. Indeed, the rate at which women work part-time has increased rapidly, just as the rate of self-employment or family work has declined. According to the Labour Force Survey, between 1960 and 2003, the proportion of women employees who worked part-time (defined as less than 35 hours per week) rose from 12 per cent to 41 per cent.2 As I will discuss shortly, in recent years, some of this rise has been due to the poor state of the labour market for youth. Nevertheless, in the case of women, the bulk of the shift towards part-time work occurred before 1990 and is spread across age groups. It is reasonable to expect that the decline in unpaid family work may be directly related.
Changes in the workplace 79 To investigate this possibility, I have used two different methods. One approach is to use evidence on change of employment status that is given in the Employment Status Survey (Shugyo Kozo Kihon Chosa) conducted every five years by the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications. This is a large household survey covering over 400,000 households and thus covers more than a million individuals. In 2002, the published statistics of this survey allowed one to look directly at the movement of men and women who changed jobs. A transition matrix is shown in Table 5.1. Each column of figures represents job changers coming from a particular employment category. The figures show the percentage of these job changers that move into a given employment category. The table shows that of those who continued to work, women are far more likely to move from self-employed or family status to non-regular forms of employment including part-time work. For example, 17.6 per cent of women who left self-employment or family workers status moved to non-standard employee status, while only 3.9 per cent moved to full-time regular employee status. The vast majority of these non-standard employees were part-time workers. By contrast, 17.6 per cent of men moving from self-employment went to full-time status while only 11.6 per cent moved to non-regular employment. This provides some support for the argument
Table 5.1 Transition matrix for Japanese workers who changed jobs or stopped working between October 1997 and July 2002 (%) Status in 2002
Previous status Selfemployed or family
Men Self-employed or family Regular employee Nonstandard employee Directors Not employed Total Women Self-employed or family Regular employee Nonstandard employee Directors Not Employed Total
Regular employees
Nonstandard employees
Director
6.7 17.6
6.6 40.0
3.6 19.1
9.6 18.5
11.6 2.3 61.9 100.0
14.9 2.5 36.0 100.0
29.0 0.5 47.8 100.0
14.2 24.2 33.5 100.0
4.6 3.9
2.9 18.8
2.2 9.7
4.8 14.3
17.6 0.5 73.3 100.0
24.4 0.4 53.5 100.0
38.7 0.0 49.3 100.0
33.3 14.3 33.3 100.0
Source: Employment Status Survey (2002), Japan, Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communication.
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that much of the decline in self-employment/family worker status is related to the rise in part-time employment in the case of women. The second method that I have used to investigate this problem is to exploit the variation across prefectures in the rates of family work and part-time employment. The reason for using this method is that microdata, especially longitudinal data, are not available.3 Table 5.2 shows that for married, employed women, a 1 point drop in the percentage of family workers is correlated with a 0.8 point increase in the percentage of part-time workers. A much stronger test of the hypothesis can be made by looking at the correlation between the changes in the shares of part-time workers and family workers over the five-year period between 1992 and 1997.4 Here we see that a 1 point drop in the rate of family work is significantly associated with a 0.6 increase in the rate of part-time employment as shown in row 2, column 3. I will use this latter, more conservative figure to look at the overall effect of the decline of family work. The share of family workers among employed married women dropped by 2.32 per cent between 1992 and 1997. My model would thus predict that the share of part-time workers would rise by 1.44 per cent (0.62 ⫻ 2.32 ⫽ 1.44 per cent). In fact, the share of part-time employment amongst married women rose by 3.08 per cent in this time period. So, this exercise suggests that the decline in the family firm explains not quite half of the increase in part-time employment for married women in Japan. The decline in the family-run firm is not the only source of the rise in the proportion of part-time workers in Japan. There are a number of other factors on both the supply and demand sides of the market that are responsible for Table 5.2 The correlation of part-time work and unpaid family work for Japanese married women, 1992 and 1997
Share family Workera ⌬ Share family workerb Constant R2 Observations
Share part-timea
Share regular employeea
⫺0.81* (0.24)
0.02 (0.27)
0.46* (0.04) 0.20 47
0.32* (0.05) 0.0002 47
⌬ Share part-timeb
⌬ Share regular employeeb
⫺0.62* (0.16)
⫺0.09 (0.16)
0.016* (0.004) 0.25 47
⫺.002 (.004) 0.006 47
Source: ‘The Japanese Employment System’ by Marcus Rebick (by permission of Oxford University Press. www.oup.com). Calculated using data from the Employment Status Survey (1992, 1997) Japan, Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications. Notes a Values for 1997 only. b Change from 1992 to 1997. * Significant at the 1% level. Standard errors in parentheses.
Changes in the workplace 81 this trend (Rebick 2005). The first point to note is that the rise in part-time work cannot be attributed to changes in the industrial or demographic structures. The rise in part-time work is found within most industries and demographic groups, so the move towards service sector industries and the ageing of the population are not in themselves explanations (Houseman and Osawa 1998, Rebick 2005). A long-standing source of the increase in part-time work has been the increased labour force participation of married women. Between 1980 and 2003, the labour force participation rate of women aged 35–50 rose by more than 10 percentage points to roughly 70 per cent, with much of this increase occurring in the 1980s. More than 90 per cent of women in this age group are married, and married women are more likely to work part-time or as family workers than as full-time workers (Rebick 2005: table 4.4). So there has been an increase in the supply of these workers at the same time that the numbers of family workers have been falling. The increase of part-time work among youth In recent years, however, the most important source of the increased number of non-regular workers including part-time work, contract-based work and casual work, has been the youth labour market. Throughout the 1970s and 1980s, more than 80 per cent of new graduates from secondary school or university had found secure employment in full-time jobs by the date of graduation. Since 1992, those rates have dropped by at least 20 percentage points (MOE 2004). New graduates who do not find full-time work (or go on to higher education) usually take up part-time jobs, although many remain unemployed. Youth working part-time are usually referred to as ‘freeters’, a term coined from the English word ‘free’ and the German word for work arbeit. Although this group has been criticized for not having the same devotion to work as their parents, the rapid increase in part-time work in the 1990s amongst youth has much more to do with the decline in the opportunities for full-time work (Genda 2001). The decline in the proportion of young men holding full-time regular employment (i.e. not on a temporary contract) has important implications for the future of the Japanese family. Part-time work does not pay that well, is much less secure and comes without many of the fringe benefits including family benefits that are associated with full-time work. Increasingly we are finding, however, that young men are unable (or, in some cases, unwilling) to hold jobs that will allow them to support a family. This has also made them much less attractive as marriage prospects in a society where marriage is often determined by practical considerations (see Carroll, Chapter 7, this volume). Finally, many marriages are formed on the basis of workplace introductions, and it is possible that young part-time workers experience a kind of social exclusion that makes it more difficult for both men and women to meet a prospective marriage partner. Consequently, the trend towards part-time work among youth is likely to exacerbate the current trend towards late marriage and diminished fertility.
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The fall in the rate of young graduates getting regular employment coincides with the downturn in the Japanese economy of the 1990s. It might thus appear that this trend will be reversed in the future if the economy recovers, or as the size of graduating cohorts diminishes. Japanese employers, however, have become more sensitive to personnel costs, and have increasingly turned to cheaper part-time labour whenever possible (Houseman and Osawa 1998). For example, a government survey of employers in 2003 (MHLW 2003a) found that more than half stated that a major reason for hiring part-time workers was to save on wage costs, and roughly 1 in 7 had plans to increase the proportion of part-time workers. One reason for this increased level of cost-consciousness may be that the high value of the yen since the late 1980s has pushed up Japanese labour costs in the international arena. A second reason may be found in changes in corporate governance. Japanese firms are becoming more sensitive to their valuation on the stock market as the system of bank-centred finance declines in importance (Abe 2002, Hoshi and Kashyap 2001). Finally, slower growth itself may encourage the use of part-time workers, as employers are less confident that they can guarantee the employment of full-time workers in the future. These factors suggest that the difficulty young graduates have in finding full-time permanent jobs might not be a temporary phenomenon. Young Japanese have also expressed changes in attitudes as others (e.g. Matanle 2003) have noted. They are much more ambivalent about whether they wish to stay with the same employer, and their turnover rates have increased (Genda 2001). Surveys of young Japanese part-time workers suggest that the majority of them are working part-time, either to delay taking up a career, or else to pursue other ambitions, perhaps in the arts. It is possible, of course, that much of this is ex–post rationalization of the fact that they have been unable to find the right kind of permanent job. Nevertheless, it is likely that changed attitudes amongst youth concerning the desirability of full-time work along with the fact that many of today’s youth come from wealthier families and have greater freedom, will also act to keep the rate of part-time employment at higher levels than in the past (Yamada 1999). To conclude this section of this chapter, economic changes that have taken place since 1990 have had an important impact on the workplace. First, the decline of the small family-run firm has accelerated due to deregulation and the outsourcing of work to foreign countries. As a result of this, more men and women are working as employees, away from the household. Since the early 1990s, the downturn in the Japanese economy has also had a major impact on the labour market for new graduates. The poor prospects for full-time work for new graduates have created a cohort of young men who have poorer marriage prospects. At the same time that this is taking place, however, the career prospects for those women who do find full-time work have been improving, and some women are postponing marriage to advance their working careers. The change in the conditions for working women is the subject of the next section.
Changes in the workplace 83
Efforts to improve women’s position in the firm The past twenty years have seen some direct efforts to improve the position of women in the workplace through changes in the law. In particular, the Equal Employment Opportunity Laws (EEOL) of 1986 and 1999 have been enacted in order to improve the position of women and change the culture of the workplace. As we shall see, however, these laws have only been implemented in a weak fashion and it is difficult to assess their impact on women’s employment. The EEOL of 1986 was preceded by a number of court cases in the 1970s that had established the rights of women to fairer treatment using existing labour law. The law of 1986 made many of these rulings more explicit and should have made it more difficult for firms to openly discriminate in hiring and promotions. The law was enacted partly in response to pressure from the United Nations during its International Decade for Women (1976–1985), and received a great deal of attention in the national media prior to its enactment. This in itself may have contributed to changing behaviour on the part of firms. Nevertheless, the law was weak because it did not set penalties for firms that failed to comply with its requirements. The law also suffered from the problem that rather than emphasizing the rights of women to fairer treatment, it took a paternalistic attitude towards women. Women were still exempted from working late at night and from jobs that required physical strength. To some extent, these provisions allowed firms to continue discriminating against women, by denying them access to jobs that might require work late at night. As I will discuss in the following section, track-based hiring would also become an important mechanism for continuing discrimination. The EEOL of 1999 removed some of the paternalistic provisions on women’s employment and set up a system whereby settlement of disputes could take place by mediation. There is no obligation, however, for either side to accept the terms of the mediation. The preference for mediation over judicial settlement is characteristic of much of Japan’s employment law. Thus social change comes not through legislation but through the actions of the parties involved. Given the power imbalance between firms and their employees, the system tends to favour the status quo. The courts remain as the place where the greatest changes are made, through interpretation of existing law.
Sexual harassment and the EEOL5 One area within the EEOL where there has been a specific effort to change women’s working conditions has been in the area of sexual harassment. The issue of sexual harassment in Japan was raised, as in other countries, by feminists, especially in the legal profession. The term sexual harassment (seku hara) came into use in 1989 when the first court case involving an editor and her boss received a great deal of attention in the mass media. The public became very interested in the issue and there was considerable discussion about the meaning of sexual harassment and the extent of the problem. The senate hearings on the appointment
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of Clarence Thomas to the Supreme Court and a class action suit against Mitsubishi Motors in the United States also received a lot of attention in Japan. A survey by the Japanese government in 1997 revealed that more than half of Japanese women claimed that they had been the recipients of unwelcome speech or actions in the workplace. The government took action by incorporating an article in the revised EEOL of 1999 that would explicitly deal with sexual harassment. Article 21 states that, employers are required to give necessary consideration, from the view point of employment management, to ensure that their women workers do not suffer any disadvantage in their working conditions by reason of their responses to sexual speech and behaviour in the workplace, and that their working environments do not suffer any harm due to such sexual speech and behaviour. As with other provisions of the EEOL, however, the law is mainly to be enforced through ministerial guidance and social sanction. Nevertheless, the concern about litigation and the unwelcome attention that this brings have led most large companies to institute a number of changes to address the problem. Pamphlets, posters, revised work regulations, memos and announcements at meetings are used to raise the consciousness of employees. Consultation services are also offered where employees can discuss their problems in confidence. The extent of these changes should not be exaggerated, however. A survey cited by Tomita (2000) indicated that while 70 per cent of firms with more than 1,000 employees had instituted some of these measures, only 10 per cent of firms with less than 100 employees had done so. Furthermore, there is still a large perception gap between men and women concerning what constitutes harassment. It is difficult to assess the full impact of the two EEOLs, as there have been many other factors that have affected changes in women’s position in the workplace, including the increase in the educational attainment of women over this period. The first place to look for changes is in hiring practices. Hiring practices Here we find that about half of large companies have found a way to meet the requirements of the law and yet evade its intentions by setting up dual-track hiring systems open to both men and women (MHLW 2003b). Individuals hired into general work positions (ippan shoku) work at clerical jobs with limited career prospects. On the other hand, sogo shoku or comprehensive work jobs are available to those who want full career opportunities. Sogo shoku jobs, however, require a much greater commitment on the part of employees and also require that the employee be willing to relocate if asked to do so. The result of this dual-track hiring system has been that gender-based employment differences are perpetuated through self-selection. A survey conducted by the Japan Association for the Advancement of Working Women in 2000 found that less than 4 per cent of sogo shoku positions were filled by women (JIWE 2000). In the largest firms with more than 5,000 employees this fell to 2 per cent. Virtually all men apply for sogo shoku positions. Many firms are now offering an intermediate career track which does not require that an employee be able to relocate, in the attempt to attract
Changes in the workplace 85 more women into comprehensive careers. Finally, since the revision of the EEOL in 1999, most firms have made it possible for an ippan shoku employee to move to sogo shoku work, provided certain conditions are met, such as willingness to be transferred internally between company establishments (MHLW 2001). Women in management A second place where we might look at the effects of the EEOL is in promotions to management positions. Japan is noted for the very low percentage of women found in managerial positions, as suggested by Table 5.3. Table 5.3 does indicate, however, that the share of women in management has roughly tripled in the two decades from 1982–2003. The low share of women in management can be attributed to two factors. The first is simple discrimination in the promotion process. The second, however, is that at least 40 per cent of women work part-time, and since virtually all managers are full-time workers, this reduces the numbers of women that are candidates for management positions. Increasingly, a university degree is required to attain management positions in Japanese firms. The fact that Japanese women are less likely than men to have attended a four-year university course also limits their access to management positions. If we compare the share of female managers among full-time university-educated women workers, age 35–50, with the corresponding share for men, we find that women are about a third as likely to achieve managerial posts as men. Although this still suggests that discrimination is present in the workplace, it does not seem to be at the same levels as might be inferred from Table 5.3.6 The three-fold rise in the proportion of women managers between 1982 and 2003 shown in Table 5.3 has as much to do with the increasing number of full-time career-oriented women with university educations as it does with changes in discriminatory practices. The gender gap in pay Another area where we can see an improvement in the position of women is in the gender gap in pay for full-time workers. As shown in Figure 5.2, the unadjusted Table 5.3 Percentage of management posts held by women in Japan Rank
1982
2003
Division chief (bucho) Section chief (kacho) Supervisor (kakaricho)
1.0 1.5 3.4
3.1 4.6 9.4
Source: ‘The Japanese Employment System’ by Marcus Rebick (by permission of Oxford University Press. www.oup.com). Computed from Japanese Wage Census (1982, 2003) Japan, Ministry of Labour, Ministry of Health, Welfare and Labour.
Marcus Rebick
Raw Adjusted
0.70 0.65 0.60
2002
1998
1994
0.50
1990
0.55
1982
Women’s average hourly earnings as share of men’s
0.75
1986
86
Year
Figure 5.2 Trends in the gender-based pay differential for full-time workers.
gender gap narrowed by ten points between 1982 and 2003 as women’s average hourly earnings as a share of men’s rose from 0.58 to 0.68. Much of this narrowing has come from the increased educational attainment of women. In 1950, less than 40 per cent of women went on to high school after completing middle school, and only 5 per cent of women went on to tertiary education. In 2003, 97 per cent of women went on to high school and 47 per cent of high-school graduates went on to a 2- or 4-year college. If we also consider the numbers of high-school graduates attending specialized training schools (senmon gakko), such as nursing schools, the proportion rises to around 70 per cent. In order to account for the effects of this increased educational attainment, as well as changes in the age distribution, I have used regression analysis to account for these changes. (The data source is the Japanese Wage Census, a major survey of establishments conducted by the Ministry of Health, Welfare and Labour; details of the estimating procedure are given in Rebick 2005.) The adjusted figures that control for age and education are also shown in Figure 5.2. The fact that the adjusted curve lies above the raw curve indicates that women tend to have poorer educational attainment than men, and that a large proportion of full-time women employees are young, less-experienced workers (many of whom will quit full-time work prior to having children). Even if educational attainment is more nearly equal for today’s graduates, there are still many middle-aged women workers with much less schooling. The adjusted curve only rises by some 7 points between 1982 and 2003. This suggests that increased educational attainment and changes in the age structure only account for 3 points of the 10-point narrowing of the unadjusted gender differential. The rest must come from other sources, including fairer treatment of women in the workplace. Some of this may be attributed to the EEOL of 1985, but we should note that the narrowing of the gender differential adjusted for age and education starts well before the act was enacted in 1986.
Changes in the workplace 87 At this point, I must emphasize that all of these observations have been for full-time workers. Part-time workers have much lower average hourly earnings than their full-time counterparts and this gap has grown as the position of full-time women relative to men has improved. As a result, despite the improvements in the position of full-time workers detailed earlier, the gender gap in Japan for all workers remains the highest in the developed world (Blau and Kahn 2003). Nevertheless, the enhanced career opportunities for women working full-time have had an important impact on family formation. It is worth summarizing some of the points made so far that concern women’s employment. First, as mentioned in the previous section, there has been a dramatic shift away from working as an unpaid family worker towards working as an employee, usually as a part-time worker. At the same time, Japanese (incorporated) businesses have become much more dependent on female labour, and thus more likely to provide working hours for part-time workers that allow them to mix work with caring for family members. Alongside this, there has been a general shift in the way in which women are regarded both by law and also in public opinion. Women are less likely to be barred outright from developing careers in firms and from being promoted to managerial positions. The development of sexual harassment legislation shows that women are less likely to be seen as sex objects in the workplace. Nevertheless, the numbers of women managers remain very small relative to other countries and this is largely due to the fact that women still tend to have interrupted working lives. Married women tend to leave employment to raise their children and return as part-time workers. It is difficult for a woman returning to work after an extended break to resume a career or embark on a new one. Unless the management of employees changes to allow for employees to start careers after their mid-thirties, it is unlikely that the numbers of women in managerial positions will greatly increase. The direct effect on the family is that women who wish to have more developed working careers will tend to put off marriage and child birth and this is a factor in the decline in the average fertility rate. The next section looks at how government action and changing business practice in the larger firms are coming to terms with these issues.
Efforts to improve the work–life balance Japanese policy makers have long been interested in encouraging greater participation of women at work. Indeed, given the projected decline in the working-age population, the future of the Japanese economy will depend, to a large extent, upon whether or not there is an increase in both participation and in working hours by women (Ono and Rebick 2003).7 At the same time, policy makers are aware that it is difficult for Japanese women to raise children and work at the same time. This reduces the extent to which married women can work, but it also encourages many young women to postpone marriage or child birth if they wish to continue working. The government has instituted a number of policies to change these conditions. First, there has been a concerted effort to improve the provision of childcare in
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Japan. The Ministry of Welfare introduced the first of a series of ‘Angel Plans’ in 1994 that aimed to provide subsidies for childcare and also to increase the number of places available. A combination of national and local government subsidies now cover some 75 per cent of the cost of childcare at government-licensed childcare centres (CAO 2003).8 A study for the British Department of Work and Pensions (Bradshaw and Finch 2002) puts the average monthly cost in purchasingpower-parity terms of childcare after subsidies at £231 for a couple with one child under the age of 3. This is roughly average for the twenty-two countries surveyed in the study and slightly higher than the cost in Italy of £178. The quality of childcare offered at licensed centres, whether public or private, is considered to be good by objective standards. In 2003, some 2 million children 3 and under or about 29 per cent of the pre-school population were in licensed childcare in Japan, about double the levels seen in the United Kingdom or the United States (Bradshaw and Finch 2002, IPSS 2003). Licensed centres all employ government-qualified child minders (hoikushi) who usually pass a twoyear qualifying course in order to gain the qualifications. Virtually all of them thus have some post-secondary school education and most have a two-year university education. The hoikushi are well-paid, especially in the public sector, with good benefits. There are, however, still waiting periods to gain a childcare place in some parts of Japan, and the hours of licensed centres do not always meet the needs of full-time working parents. In these cases, parents may resort to the use of an unlicensed centre, which is unsubsidized and thus more expensive, as well as having a staff of poorer quality. In 2003, roughly 200,000 children under three were in these kinds of arrangements. A second action of the government aimed at helping working women was the passage in 1992 of a Childcare Leave Law that allows a parent to take up to one year’s leave from a firm after the birth of a child. The law was revised in 1995 to become the Child Care and Family Care Leave Law, and workers are now allowed to take leave to look after other family members such as parents for up to three months. Under the new law, which applied to all establishments, the government provided up to 25 per cent replacement of earnings if the worker has insurance and has worked for two years prior to taking up leave. In 2002, this was raised to 40 per cent replacement (10 per cent of which would be paid after returning to work). The law has proved to be a success – in 2003, almost three quarters of women who were employees at the time of the birth of a child took up leave (MHLW 2003b). One study, conducted between 1992 and 1995, when firms with less than thirty employees were not covered, found that women were twice as likely to return to work at the same company if they had taken leave under the new scheme with 80 per cent returning (Higuchi et al. 1997). Virtually all of the leave under these laws is taken by women – the Survey of Women’s Employment Management of 2003 found that less than half a per cent of men were taking up the leave available. This is not especially surprising – a replacement rate of 40 per cent of a man’s salary is not very attractive to families unless the mother continues to work and is the top earner. Even if the replacement rate was raised in Japan, however, many men would feel that the cost to their career advancement might be too high (see also Nakatani, Chapter 6, this volume). The Angel Plans
Changes in the workplace 89 and Child and Family Care Leave have been more successful in raising the labour force participation of women than they have been in improving the gender balance of responsibility in the family. A third policy of the government has been to encourage firms to adopt ‘familyfriendly’ policies. These policies include subsidies for childcare, the provision of crèches at work, flexible hours of work, exemption from overtime or shorter hours of work. Some firms, for example, have introduced schemes whereby workers can retain the status of ‘regular worker’ while working part-time (tanjikan seishain seido) (Matsubara 2004). Some firms have also developed routes to allow women who work part-time to move to regular worker status (Takeishi 2003) or else to take on greater responsibility at work. One of the barriers that remains, preventing more firms from adopting this strategy, is the need to be able to transfer their regular workers to other parts of the company, sometimes in far-flung locations. As a result, the implementation of these schemes remains limited at the present time. Perhaps the biggest single change in the workplace in terms of its effect on the family has been the general reduction of working hours. The measurement of hours of work varies, depending on whether one uses data from surveys of establishments or surveys of households. Establishment-based surveys only measure paid hours of work, and given that (even more than in other countries such as the United Kingdom or the United States), there is a lot of unpaid overtime in the typical Japanese workplace, there will be a downward bias on the measurement.9 Establishment-based surveys will also fail to measure total hours of work if the employee works at another job. Household surveys, on the other hand, suffer from the problem that hours of work may be only rough estimates. Nevertheless, whichever survey is used, Japanese hours of work have fallen substantially, especially since the start of the recession. According to the establishment-based Monthly Labour Survey, in 1986, Japanese in establishments with more than five employees worked an average of 2,132 hours (2,236 hours and 1,954 hours for men and women respectively). This fell to 1,828 hours in 2003. On the other hand, the household-based Labour Force Survey shows a similar drop from 2,392 hours in 1990 to 2,204 hours in 2001. Although the latter set of numbers suggest that Japanese still work some of the longest hours in the OECD, the drop in hours worked has been substantial.10 The largest part of this drop has come in average hours worked per week as the percentage of employees that worked on Saturdays fell from 50 per cent to 10 per cent. It is noteworthy that this change has come over roughly the same period that the Ministry of Education has phased out Saturday schooling. This freeing up of Saturdays has undoubtedly had a major effect on family life as families (at least those with primary-age school children) have more time to spend together on the weekend. Despite the reduction in working hours, the working day remains long in Japan. Given that government-subsidized childcare does not always cover these long hours, and given the preferences of many mothers to prioritize their children in early years, it remains difficult for women to continue working full-time after child birth. Short-time regular employment may be a solution, but its implementation remains limited so far.
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Conclusions The last twenty years have seen a number of important changes in the labour market that have had an impact on the family. The Japanese family-run firm is in decline at the same time that women have increasingly been employed as part-time employees. The prolonged recession in Japan has had an impact on the ability of both young men and women to gain secure full-time employment that offers attractive career prospects. This, in turn, has likely been a contributing factor in the decline of both the marriage and the fertility rate. The Japanese government, because of its concerns about the fertility rate, and because it wishes to increase the contribution of women to the market economy as the working-age population falls, has passed legislation aimed at improving the ability of women to manage a work–life balance. Despite the fact that Japan has some of the best and moderately-priced institutional childcare in the developed world, married women with young children either do not work, or tend to work at part-time jobs. Once women have moved to part-time work, it is very difficult for them to return to regular worker status, even if their hours increase. Although improved childcare arrangements, such as extended hours for nurseries, may have a modest effect on women’s options, the fact remains that the long working hours and the closed nature of the employment system for regular workers make it difficult for women to balance an ambitious career with raising children. The Japanese government will have to take much more forceful action if it wishes to change the gender imbalance. Japanese firms are unlikely to make the necessary changes on their own, although some firms, especially foreign firms or their subsidiaries such as IBM, are making serious efforts. The government will also have to increase the spending aimed at children, including raising the replacement rate for lost earnings during parental leave. Neither of these are likely in the future. The Japanese Ministry of Health, Welfare and Labour’s consensual approach to policy making makes it unlikely that firms will be put under pressure to change their personnel management (Weathers 2004). The Ministry of Finance is unlikely to approve of major new public benefits given the poor state of the government’s finances. Despite the fact that the gender imbalance in the labour market remains entrenched in Japan for the foreseeable future, the attitude towards women at work has changed substantially over the past twenty years, and there is much more awareness of issues such as sexual harassment. Increasingly, young people take the view that both women and men should have working careers. Family life has become more balanced with the move toward the five-day work week, a sign that the Japanese have recognized that they are now a wealthy country.
Acknowledgement I would like to thank Ann Waswo, Roger Goodman and Ayumi Takenaka for helpful comments on an earlier draft of this chapter. Parts of this chapter are based on Rebick (2005).
Changes in the workplace 91
Notes 1 One of the likely effects of the recession is that some families will find their income substantially reduced if, for example, a highly-paid member was to lose his or her job and be unable to find another job with comparable compensation. I will not deal with this issue in this chapter except for the special case of youth being unable to find well-paid full-time employment. 2 These figures, however, understate the real level of part-time work as many women employees who work more than thirty five hours per week are classified as part-time by their employer and receive much lower pay and poorer benefits. Some government surveys classify the number of part-time workers by whether the employer treats them as such, but the Labour Force Survey provides information on the number of hours worked. This latter definition is closer to the one used by most other countries. For more details see Rebick (2005). 3 There is one longitudinal survey of younger women in Japan run by the Institute for Household Economy, but its small size makes it impossible to study the movement of women from self-employment or family work in any meaningful way. 4 This is an estimate that removes the fixed effects associated with each prefecture. 5 This section is to a large extent based on Wolff (2003). 6 A recent survey of women in sogo shoku jobs shows that more than 60 per cent believe that there is still gender-based discrimination in promotions and pay in their firm. 7 Rebick (2005) examines other ways of dealing with the decline in the labour force, including productivity growth, outsourcing of work to other countries and immigration. Nevertheless, increased participation by women is one of the ways in which the fall in the labour force could be ameliorated. 8 The cost of childcare will vary, however, depending on the locality and the circumstances of the family. 9 Mizunoya (2002) uses comparisons between household and establishment surveys in several OECD countries and finds that in 1993, Japanese average annual overtime hours at 270 were more than double those of the United States or the United Kingdom and ten times as high as those of Germany. 10 For example, MHLW (2004) Table K-11 reports that employees in the UK and US worked an average of 1,902 hours and 1,991 hours, respectively, while in France and Germany, the average stood at around 1,550 hours (comparable figures for Italy are not available). These figures do not, however, take into account unpaid overtime.
References Abe, M. (2002) ‘Corporate Governance Structure and Employment Adjustment in Japan: An Empirical Analysis Using Corporate Finance Data’, Industrial Relations, 41(4): 683–702. Aronson, R. (1991) Self-employment, Ithaca, NY: ILR Press. Blau, F. D. and Kahn L. M. (2003) ‘Understanding International Differences in the Gender Pay Gap’, Journal of Labor Economics, 21(1): 106–144. Bradshaw, J. and Finch N. (2002) A Comparison of Child Benefit Packages in 22 Countries, London: Department of Work and Pensions. CAO (Cabinet Office) (2003) Hoiku Sabisu no Genjo to Kadai: hoiku sabisu kakaku ni kansuru kenkyukai hokokusho (Childcare Services: Report of the childcare services cost study group). Online. Available http://www5.cao.go.jp/seikatsu/price/hoiku (accessed 18 April 2005). Flath, D. (2003) ‘Regulation, distribution efficiency and retail density’, in M. Blomstrom, J. Corbett, F. Hayashi and A. Kashyap (eds), Structural Impediments to Growth in Japan, Chicago, IL: University of Chicago, pp. 129–154.
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Genda, Y. (2001) Shigoto no naka no Aimai no Fuan (A Vague Unease at Work), Tokyo: Chuo Koron Shinsha. Higuchi, Y., Abe M. and Waldfogel J. (1997) ‘Nichi-bei-o ni okeru ikuji kyugyo shussan kyugyo seido to josei shugyo (Childcare and Maternity Leave Policies and Women’s Employment in Japan, the United States and the United Kingdom)’, Jinko Mondai Kenkyu (Journal of Population Problems), 53: 49–66. Hoshi, T. and Kashyap A. (2001) Corporate Financing and Governance in Japan: The road to the future, Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Houseman, S. and Osawa M. (1998) ‘What is the nature of part-time work in the United States and Japan?’, in J. O’Reilly and C. Fagan (eds), Part-time Prospects: An International Comparison of Part-time Work in Europe, North America and the Pacific Rim, London: Routledge, pp. 232–251. IPSS National Institute of Population and Social Research. (2003) Child Related Policies in Japan, Tokyo: National Institute of Population and Social Research. Online. Available http: http://www.ipss.go.jp/s-info/e/childPJ2003/childPJ2003.htm (accessed 10 March 2005). JIWE (Japan Institute of Workers Evolution). (2000) Daisotsusha no Saiyo Jokyo Oyobi Sogoshoku Josei no Shugyo Jittai Chosa (Survey of the Employment of University Graduates and Sogo Shoku Women). Online. Available http://www.jiwe.or. jp/jyoho/chosa/employSurvey/employSurvey.html (accessed 10 March 2005). Katz, R. (1998) Japan, The System that Soured: The Rise and Fall of the Japanese Economic Miracle, London: M. E. Sharpe. Kuttner, K. N., Posen A. S., Fischer S. and Makin J. (2001) ‘The Great Recession: Lessons for Macroeconomic Policy from Japan / Comments’, Brookings Papers on Economic Activity 2: 93–185. Matanle, P. (2003) Japanese Capitalism and Modernity in a Global Era: Refabricating Lifetime Employment Relations, London: RoutledgeCurzon. Matsubara, M. (2004) ‘Tanjikan seishain no kanosei (The Possibility of Having Short-time Regular Employees)’, Nihon Rodo Kenkyu Zasshi 528: 69–79. MHLW (Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare). (2001) Kosu Betsu Koyo Kanri Seido no Jittai Jokyo to Shido Jokyo ni Tsuite (Concerning the Track Employment Management System). Online. Available http://www.mhlw.go.jp/houdou/0110/h1005-3. html (accessed 10 March 2005). MHLW (2003a) Shugyo Keitai no Tayoka ni Kansuru Jittai Chosa (Survey on Employment Diversification). Online. Available http://wwwdbtk.mhlw.go.jp/toukei/kouhyo/ indexkr_26_2.html (accessed 18 April 2005). MHLW (2003b) Josei Koyo Kanri Chosa (Survey of the Management of Women’s Employment) Tokyo: Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare. Online. Available http://wwwdbtk.mhlw.go.jp/toukei/kouhyo/indexkr_19_3.html (accessed 18 April 2005). MHLW (2004) Rodo Tokei Yoran (Handbook of Labour Statistics), Tokyo: Kokuritsu Insatsu Kyoku. Mizunoya, T. (2002) ‘An International Comparison of Unpaid Overtime Work Among Industrialized Countries’, ILO Bulletin of Labour Statistics. Online. Available http://www.ilo.org/public/english/bureau/stat/papers/listart.htm (accessed on 18 April 2005). MOE (Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology). (2004) Monbu Tokei Yoran (Handbook of Education Statistics), Tokyo: Ministry of Finance. Online. Available http://www.mext.go.jp/b_menu/toukei/002/002b/koumoku.html (accessed 18 April 2005).
Changes in the workplace 93 Nitta, M. (2003) Henka no Naka no Koyo Shisutemu (The Employment System in a Changing Japanese Society), Tokyo: Tokyo University Press. OECD. (2003) Labour Force Statistics, Paris: OECD. Ono, H. and Rebick M. E. (2003) ‘Constraints on the level and efficient use of labour’, in M. Blomstrom, J. Corbett, F. Hayashi and A. Kashyup (eds), Structural Impediments to Growth in Japan, Chicago, IL: University of Chicago. Patrick, H. T. and Rohlen T. P. (1987) ‘Small-scale family enterprises’, in K. Yamamura and Y. Yasuba (eds), The Political Economy of Japan: Volume 1, The domestic transformation, Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, pp. 331–384. Porter, M. E. and Takeuchi H. (1999) ‘Fixing What Really Ails Japan’ Foreign Affairs, 78(3): 66–82. Rebick, M. (2005) The Japanese Employment System: Adapting to a New Economic Environment, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Takeishi, U. (2003) ‘Hiseiki rodosha no kikan rodoryokuka to koyo kanri no henka’ (Changing Labour Management to Make Non-standard Workers Become Core Workers), Nissei Kenkyusho, 26: 1–36. Online. Available at http:// www.nli-research.co.jp/doc/syo0212a2.pdf (accessed April 18 2005). Tomita, K. (2000) ‘Sekushuaru harasumento no jittai to boshi no tame no hairyo gimu (The Status of Sexual Harassment and Obligatory Measures to Prevent it)’, Nihon Rodo Kenkyu Zasshi, 42(5): 16–22. Weathers, C. (2004) ‘Temporary Workers, Women and Labour Policy-making in Japan’, Japan Forum, 16(3): 423–445. Wolff, L. (2003) ‘Sexual Harassment Law in Japan’, unpublished paper, Sydney: Faculty of Law, University of New South Wales. Yamada, M. (1999) Parasaito Shinguru no Jidai (The Age of the Parasite Single), Tokyo: Chikuma Shinsho. Yoshikawa, H. (2002) Japan’s Lost Decade, Tokyo: International House of Japan.
6
The emergence of ‘nurturing fathers’ Discourses and practices of fatherhood in contemporary Japan Ayami Nakatani
Introduction The aim of this chapter is to examine contemporary views and/or debates over fatherhood in Japan. The roles and responsibilities of fathers in parenting have attracted considerable attention among journalists, social critics and the public as well as policy makers from the late 1990s onwards. In this chapter, I will identify divergent expectations for father roles and contrast them with actual practices through the use of various statistics and personal accounts of fathers and mothers. In particular, this study will focus on the key issues of ‘nurturing fathers’, who actively engage themselves with the early phase of child rearing and thus clearly challenge the conventional division of labour by gender. The term ‘nurturing fathers’ has been taken from a book by Kyle D. Pruett (Pruett 1988), who conducted qualitative research on American fathers who were the primary caregivers to their children. This term caught my attention, because it evoked a somewhat unsettling sentiment. On the one hand, mothers were no doubt expected to nurture their children. Thus, if they did not fulfil their mother roles properly, they would be disqualified as mothers (cf. Dowd 2000: 1). On the other hand, most fathers did not engage themselves with nurturing activities. According to the time-use data collected by the Statistics Bureau in 2001, Japanese men of double-earning households with children less than 5 years of age spend only 16 minutes on an average per day nurturing their offspring (Statistics Bureau 2001). At the same time, we also see a seed for future change. Against a backdrop provided by the legislation of childcare leave, open to both women and men, the presence of actively engaged fathers has been put under the spotlight in one way or other, despite their small number.1 In 1996, the percentage of male employees who utilized the law and took childcare leave remained at 0.16 per cent of those who were eligible (those having a child less than 1 year old), although this was 8 times higher than the percentage 3 years previously.2 Yet their increasing visibility in the course of the 1990s derives primarily from the extensive coverage by the media. Firsthand accounts of men’s experiences as full-time fathers were publicized by magazine interviews, TV documentary films and their own writings. Even the annual report by the Ministry of Health and Welfare (presently
Discourses and practices of fatherhood 95 Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare, MHLW hereafter) featured them, in 1998, with the intention of encouraging other fathers also to take childcare leave. In the same vein, the ministry launched a nation-wide campaign in March 1999, which was meant to publicize ‘the joy of childcare’ and ‘the importance of the joint responsibility of the parents’. As a response to a proposal at the ‘Meeting of the Learned to Consider Measures to Cope with Fewer Children’ held in December 1998, this public relations activity formed part of the governmental efforts to tackle the declining birth rate; this particular campaign succeeded in achieving publicity, thanks to the timely employment of the husband and baby son of a famous pop singer, Namie Amuro, for posters and TV commercials. Its controversial copy, ‘A man who does not raise his children will not be called a father’ (Kosodate shinai otoko o chichi towa yobanai), also became the talk of the town for a while and received mixed reactions from different segments of the population. The couple got divorced three years later, but MHLW has continued with its efforts to raise public awareness on this matter and to encourage fathers to take childcare leave by launching another series of campaigns in 2002. On the basis of such developments in the past decade, one might argue that the dominant discourse on fatherhood is characterized by moral as well as institutional support for those who would venture into full-time fatherhood by taking advantage of newly available childcare leave. More or less coincidentally, however, another stream of books and writings promoting the more ‘traditional’ notion of fatherhood has gained a large readership. A prime example is Michiyoshi Hayashi’s book titled Fusei no Fukken (Reinstatement of fatherhood), published in 1996. The popularity of this book was also widely reported in the media. As a certain newspaper article put it, fusei (fatherhood) became the ‘key term of an era’ (Asahi Shimbun 7 May 1997). Importantly, the ideal image of a father advocated by authors, such as Hayashi, differs from that of a ‘nurturing’ one, as will be examined in the following section. In either case, the notion of fatherhood is in vogue. This chapter thus attempts to examine what underlies the present situation and changes concerning contemporary fatherhood in Japan, especially in relation to an array of social and historical forces that serve as a backdrop for new developments in the domestic domain as well as in society at large. The bulk of my data for the present study consists of survey results, a wide range of commercial publications, governmental reports, magazines and newspaper clippings, collected between 1996 and 2002. I also made personal observations and conducted informal interviews on various occasions, such as at seminars and symposiums related to father roles and child rearing, and in daily interactions with fathers of different backgrounds.
To lead or nurture?: divergent views of fatherhood The number of publications that critically examine the position of contemporary fathers and present normative views of ideal fatherhood has been on the rise since the early 1990s in Japan. We can identify three major factors behind this renewed
96 Ayami Nakatani attention to fatherhood. First, social problems facing young people have become increasingly apparent, as exemplified by the fact that more and more serious crimes have been committed by children in their early teens, and also by the fact that bullying and suicides have been widespread among school pupils all over the country. In many cases, such worrying situations have been attributed to the malfunction of the families of the children involved; especially excessive care of the mothers and the lack of concern of the fathers have been regarded as the source of problems. Second, a sharp decline in the birth rate over the last decade has persisted without any sign of an upturn, and has raised public awareness that conventional gender roles need to be modified. Third, partly owing to economic stagnation and the emergence of men’s studies and ‘men’s lib’ movements in the early 1990s, the notion of masculinity has been cast in a new light; that is, men have started to question their work-oriented lifestyle, and to search for a new balance in work and other, more personal elements in their lives.3 The rise in public interest in fatherly roles is scarcely a new phenomenon. Since the mid-1970s, social critics, journalists and psychologists alike have repeatedly voiced their worries that the prevalent family situation, typically labelled as ‘the absence of fathers from home (chichioya fuzai)’ or ‘the lack of paternal authority ( fusei no ketsujo)’, will cause a negative impact on children. In their opinion, the stronger presence of a father vis-à-vis his children is the best means of solving the social problems noted earlier.4 The lines of rhetoric put forward by these ‘pro-fatherhood’ critics have remained surprisingly unchanged over time. Often building on a nostalgic image of the ‘ganko-oyaji (stern father)’ or ‘kaminari oyaji (thunder father)’ who used to be the domineering figure in pre-war Japanese families,5 they argue that fathers have ‘essentially’ different roles from those of the mothers; the fathers can take their ‘turn’ when children grow old enough (say, after entering a primary school) to understand their moral lessons. Fathers are encouraged to play with their children more often and to teach them basic social manners such as proper greetings as well as the core rules of their family. They should also talk about their own philosophies and views of life (Hayashi 1996; Hirai et al. 1993; Takahashi 1980). By contrast, mothers are to be there to look after the babies and toddlers on a day-to-day basis. Kamidera (1978), for example, states, ‘It is important for a father to concern himself with child rearing . . . .but he must not try to take away his wife’s foremost concern’ (ibid.: 81). In his view, a mother naturally values childcare as the most satisfying element in her life (ikigai), thus it is almost malicious for the husband to attempt to interfere with her task. He should simply support the motherly roles in his own ways, instead of just emulating his wife’s behaviour and thereby infringing her sanctified domain (ibid.: 81–82). Similarly, Hayashi, author of a 1996 best-seller Fusei no fukken, stresses that the role of the father is not to share the housework; he has ‘more important things to do’ (Hayashi 1998: 65–66). Characteristically, this body of literature never tries to challenge the existing view of gender roles. Rather, the authors tend to draw a clear-cut boundary between the mother’s and the father’s responsibilities. The implied message is that
Discourses and practices of fatherhood 97 the father is justifiably exempt from committing himself to the routine care of his children, especially with trivial, yet essential, chores in the early stages of child rearing, such as feeding and changing diapers. What these critics strongly advise instead is the need to enhance the father’s presence vis-à-vis the school-age children – the father portraying himself as a wise, leading figure of the family, if not the tyrant as in the old days. The father is also expected to play an essential role in ‘connecting’ the family domain (katei) with a larger society by exposing his children to the rules and values outside the home.6 An alternative type of publication, however, has also emerged since the beginning of the 1990s: feature articles, published interviews and personal memoirs of the fathers who actively committed themselves to infant care during the postpartum period by obtaining childcare leave. Significantly, most of these authors are neither academics nor professional writers who tend to be seen enjoying flexible working hours, but are ordinary ‘salaried men’ or company employees.7 Some of them are also active in social movements aimed at putting pressure on the government, political parties, and other relevant bodies to realize a better working environment in which men can more easily engage themselves with childcare.8 In sum, the popular discourse on Japanese fatherhood does not present a single viewpoint. Although it is more or less agreed that men must review their previous, work-oriented lifestyle and become more actively engaged with the family domain, the ways in which actual father roles are defined differ significantly. On the one hand, a group of advocates for the father’s stronger presence endorses the ideal image of the father who assumes active roles mainly in socializing and disciplining children. On the other hand, ‘practising’ fathers emphasize the importance of a more practical and total commitment to childcare activities including those at the early infancy phase. It is the latter wave of opinions and practices that would challenge the status quo in the conventional distribution of gender roles. Before examining them in more detail, I will first take a look at the current situation of the domestic division of labour in Japan.
Ideals and reality: a division of labour at home The Prime Minister’s Office (now Cabinet Office) has conducted a series of public opinion surveys on various aspects of gender equity since the early 1990s. All of these surveys include a question concerning the public views on the fixed division of labour by gender, as represented by the popular idiom, ‘Men should be at work, women should be at home (Otoko wa shigoto, onna wa katei)’. In the survey conducted in February 2000, only 25 per cent of the respondents affirmed this way of thinking. This ratio has been on the decrease since 1987, when 43 per cent agreed with the idea (Prime Minister’s Office 2000a).9 The shift in the public opinion on this issue can be discerned in many other surveys as well. In another national survey undertaken in September 2000, the vast majority of both male and female respondents stated that men should commit themselves actively to the ‘care, socialization (shitsuke) and education of their children’
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(91 per cent and 94 per cent respectively).10 In the previous, comparable survey of 1993,11 the percentages of a favourable response to men’s greater engagement with parenting were 89 per cent for men and 93 per cent for women. Interestingly, the gap between male and female views has shrunk somewhat during the past seven years. Yet it must be noted that parenting in this context refers to a wide range of activities. In other words, a father’s greater commitment to his children’s lives, as supported by these respondents, can be realized in any form; he may be simply expected to have a greater say in his children’s affairs, without furthering his involvement with day-to-day matters in the domestic sphere. To substantiate this point, another question with regard to men’s sharing of general housework, such as cooking, washing and cleaning, attracted less enthusiasm. Those who thought that men should commit themselves actively to such domestic chores accounted for 71 per cent of the male respondents and 73 per cent of the female respondents. Compared with the earlier survey (in 1993) in which only 65 per cent of men and 68 per cent of women responded positively, these figures still reveal significant attitudinal changes; however, sharing parenting does not necessarily entail a greater involvement by men in general housework even on the level of ideals. In practice, it was the wife who mainly performed household tasks in the 87 per cent of the households of married respondents (both men and women); even among the respondents in double-earning households, only 12 per cent of them practised task sharing by all members of the family. The current state of affairs of the so-called ‘double burden’ endured by working mothers is vividly illustrated by another survey that asked the parents of pre-schoolers about both the ideal and actual practices of task sharing in the home.12 First of all, it is striking to see a wide discrepancy in the views held by the conjugal couple. In every aspect of childcare, including cooking, feeding, washing up, giving children a bath, playing, getting them to day-care centre and collecting them, the percentage of the wives who believed the task must be shared by the parents exceeded that of the husbands who agreed; the difference was the greatest for such tasks as meal preparation and comforting babies during the night. As far as the ideal pattern is concerned, however, the husbands still expressed their willingness to share. Almost 70 per cent of them thought they should also change diapers and put the children to bed. More than half of the husbands agreed to share 12 tasks out of 15 on the list. Yet the reality is quite different. To take diaper-changing for an example, 60.8 per cent of the husbands saw it (ideally) as a shared task, while 39 per cent of them said it was their wives’ job. In reality, only 27 per cent actually shared it. The results of other surveys also confirm that so far as task-sharing is concerned, there is a persistent gap between the stated ideal and actual practices.13 On the whole, as we have seen earlier, men’s entry into the domestic sphere is seen in a positive light by both men and women. Nevertheless, the tasks directly related to parenting and those of household maintenance are perceived differently. Moreover, the husband’s actual commitment is largely confined to specific types
Discourses and practices of fatherhood 99 of task, such as playing, giving a bath and general socializing (shitsuke). Other tasks, including changing diapers, putting children to bed and feeding, are primarily performed by mothers, even when they also have a paying job (see also Cabinet Office 2003: 42).
Mother’s talk: gender politics in shared parenting If the gender division of labour in the home has not changed significantly even among double-earner families, the next question that arises is, do wives accept or resent this situation? The following commentaries, taken from a magazine specializing in child rearing, are reproduced here to illuminate the ways in which working wives perceive the fact that they often assume parental duties single-handedly. I understand that my husband is stressed out with work and wants to take a break on holidays. But I do work, too. I am also exhausted; I also want to take a rest. Yet it’s me who has to do the housework and take care of the children at home. I wish my husband would understand where I stand and how I feel. (Chiisai Nakama May 1997: 26) When our child falls ill, it is invariably me who takes time off from work. My husband never does. It may be because he assumes greater responsibilities at work than myself, but once, our child got chicken pox and could not go to day care when my husband happened to have a day off. He however went fishing, while I took leave and felt apologetic to everyone at my workplace. (Chiisai Nakama July Special Edition 2001: 33) My husband would say, ‘I am doing much better than so-and-so’ (in sharing parenting). But I cannot stand him when he leisurely watches TV after the evening meal while I busy myself with washing up and then putting our children to bed. (Chiisai Nakama January 2003: 22) The magazine Chiisai Nakama (Small Pals) that published the mother’s statements given in the previous lines is distributed directly to a fixed readership, mainly through nation-wide networks of day-care centres.14 The themes featured in its monthly editions range from typical activities and problems at day care such as sporting events, day-out and inter-age-group relationships, to mundane childcare problems including feeding, sleeping, toilet training and so on. The problem of balancing job and family commitments is one of the most popular themes and is taken up regularly. Such feature articles consist of short, theme-related commentaries from individual readers as well as longer accounts based on personal experiences of some selected readers. The magazine also welcomes opinions, questions and comments on daily experiences and sources of anxiety with regard to child rearing from its readers, and publishes some of them in the readers’ pages.
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When the readers, the majority of whom are working mothers, voice their concerns and anxieties over their efforts to combine a paid job with the care of pre-school children, they recognize the multifaceted nature of the problems; it is not just their husbands’ reluctance to share childcare responsibilities, but the lack of institutional support and the persistent views on motherhood in society at large that make them anxious in their daily struggles. Typically, however, they question as to why it is always them, never their husbands, who receive a telephone call from the day care at the times when their children suddenly fall ill. The feeling of ‘why only me?’ also emerges and causes rage towards their husbands who watch TV or read newspapers without bothering to take part, while they, the wives, preoccupy themselves non-stop with one task after another, ranging from daily shopping to doing laundry, cooking, washing up and so on, as we have seen in the third quotation given earlier. Other, more commercially-oriented magazines targeted at mothers in the midst of raising babies and young children within homes, also occasionally feature the theme of sharing parenting. Full-time mothers, too, find it highly problematic and frustrating when they gain little support from their husbands. In their case, however, they tend to emphasize the lack of emotional, rather than instrumental, support (i.e. showing appreciation of the wives’ daily efforts and listening sympathetically to their complaints), for they unquestionably accept childcare itself as ‘mother’s work’. It is not only because their lifestyle is established on the basis of the conventional gender division of labour, but also because they internalize social expectations for the mother as the prime care-giver to the children (see Sasagawa, Chapter 8, this volume).15 Importantly, such a persistent perception of motherhood has an enduring influence over the working wives too, as seen in their sometimes twisted response to the prospect of shared parenting. The following quote provides an example. My husband has flexible ideas (about the gender division of tasks) and believes anyone should do housework and childcare whenever he/she can do it. And he does do both perfectly. I appreciate it very much. Yet when I come to think about what I am like as a mother for my baby-son, I feel disconcerted . . . My son seems to feel really close to his father. When he hurts himself, he will go to my husband, crying for help, even though I try to comfort him . . . Out of a mounting sense of guilt, I even feel nervous when I face my son. (Chiisai Nakama January 1998: 17) The mother who wrote this letter has to work overtime almost everyday, thus she has little time to spend with her one-year-old son during the working week. The fact that her husband willingly takes prime responsibility for child minding seems to represent a perfect situation which many other mothers would have wished for. But the mother in question has mixed feelings. Her anguish stems from her own perception that she has failed to live up to the standard as a ‘proper’ mother. It is all very gratifying if the husband is supportive; ironically, however,
Discourses and practices of fatherhood 101 it creates another source of anxiety if he outdoes his wife, for he runs a risk of infringing the sacrosanct domain of motherhood. There I see an incessant tug-of-war going on. Another letter describes a similar situation, although, in this case, it is the grandparents who are willing to help out. Even when I was truly exhausted from lack of sleep and breast-feeding, I could not fully appreciate my parents trying to soothe my baby daughter on my behalf. I felt as if they would take her away from me . . . . After we started to live with my parents-in-law, they were also more than happy to help us so that I could continue my job. I find myself lucky, but I still could not help feeling anxious that I would be deprived of my daughter . . . . When they say, ‘We will look after her for you’, I take it as if they had said, ‘You are not needed’. (Chiisai Nakama April 1998: 59) These letters may not be particularly representative of the voices expressed in the magazine’s pages, for the dominant tone is set by the crying out for more equal task-sharing. Nevertheless, it seems important to pay attention to this ‘gender politics in sharing parenting’ (Dienhart 1998), because insofar as the mothers themselves continue to internalize a conventional view of motherhood, childcare remains a contested arena where little space is left for the fathers to assume more active roles.16 Some fathers seem to be very aware of this fact. At a small meeting discussing father roles in child rearing, predominantly attended by nurturing fathers, it was pointed out that as long as women retain monopoly over childcare activities, men will never become competent and as a result, will continue to be excluded from the joy of the child raising process. To avoid such alienation, it was suggested, the only way is to demand constantly, ‘let me do this’ and ‘let me do that’ from a very early stage. This may sound completely unrealistic in the eyes of most wives whose husbands look remotely interested, but the very reason for effectiveness of childcare leave taken by fathers derives from the absence of their wives who might hinder their capacity-development. For as long as their wives are around, the husbands tend to be deprived of practising housework and childcare at their own pace.
When fathers nurture . . . I shall now turn to a closer examination of the actively engaged fathers’ accounts, which illustrate their views and practices vividly. Many of such fathers write their experiences and feelings in minute detail, starting from the circumstances of their wives’ pregnancy, child birth, the point of their decision of taking childcare leave and proceeding to the daily routine during the leave.17 What interests me most in their own descriptions of full-time fatherhood is the fact that they come to share the emotion of anxiety and solitude, apparently long
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experienced by the mothers with or without work. In response to a complaint by a colleague whose non-working wife demands his doing his share of the housework, a male civil servant who took childcare leave relates: In fact, I know how his wife feels, for I was a househusband for four months myself. When my wife came home late from work for many consecutive days, I could not help feeling frustrated and anguished. Whether working outside home or doing housework and childcare, we are all under stress in one way or other. The most important thing is whether we can understand each other’s viewpoints. (Shoji Tsuchida, in Wakita et al. 2000: 80)18 Other nurturing fathers, too, seem to have gone through a stage of anguish and frustration, mainly due to a sense of being alienated from wider social networks. They complained that their wives neither understood them fully nor listened to them (Ota 1992). They also found themselves on the verge of nervous breakdown (Yoshida 1992). Their reaction echoes exactly what their own and other wives would claim, as presented in the previous section.19 At the same time, however, nurturing fathers also share the sheer enjoyment of parenting.20 Their narratives describing the time spent with their babies during the leave are filled with simple affection, and reveal how they have cultivated emotional bonding with them. The men emphasize they would never have really understood how infatuating the babies were, had they not been so closely involved with them. Apparently, the very fact that they were made solely responsible for the child, albeit for a limited period of time, created a strong degree of intimacy and attachment.21 I now understand why other mothers at the crèche often said, ‘My husband is too busy at work. I feel sorry for him not knowing the joy of child rearing’. The reward for bringing up children is the accumulated memory of subtle interactions with them, including trivial daily contacts. You cannot gain it unless you stay really close to them. My days with the children during the childcare leave perhaps cultivated my sensitivity to such small happiness. (Yoshihiro Wakita, in Wakita et al. 2000: 26) The totality of their commitment as nurturing fathers is also expressed in their daily struggle concerning the particulars of childcare. Eventually, they proudly declare, it is only a matter of experience and personal attitudes that determines whether one can be a qualified caregiver (Wakita et al. 2000: 33, 145, 160). Indeed, men cannot be physiologically unfit for changing stinking diapers. The nurturing fathers do not run away from their baby’s wastes; more precisely, they have no choice, just as any mother has no choice. They also realize through daily practice that defecation is one of the most important indicators of their baby’s physical condition (Wakita et al. 2000: 19). For that matter, their wives are in no better position, because due to their upbringing in nuclear families, most of them
Discourses and practices of fatherhood 103 have little experience of infant care. In this respect, these fathers’ experiences consolidate the fact that parental practice, and not the given qualities of either gender, do make for committed and caring parents. What is more, their practice illuminates the rigidity of the societal assumption that mothers are primarily responsible for household chores and childcare. When nurturing fathers take their baby to hospitals, for instance, the doctors often keep referring to (absent) mothers (ibid.: 20).22 Furthermore, they are made aware of curious looks when they go out with their babies during the working week (Nishi 1992: 62). Even excessive compliments can hurt their feelings, for mothers will never be praised in the same way. A man who took his child to a nearby park describes how futile was his attempt to merge himself with the mothers there. He was ‘a phenomenon altogether beyond the range of their imaginations’ (Ota 1999). On the practical side, nurturing fathers face inconveniences on a day-to-day basis: the handles of push chairs are often set in a position too low for the average height of a man, and this causes them backache; they find no space for changing diapers in men’s toilets (Wakita et al. 2000: 58–59). All in all, these self-reflective accounts by the men who practised their fatherhood by becoming primarily responsible for the everyday details of their children’s upbringing, offer a living proof that fathers are equally capable of performing a wide range of child-tending tasks and that the way they interact with their young children (how they speak, smile or try to socialize) can become very similar to that of mothers, as already argued by some Japanese developmental psychologists (Kashiwagi 1993: 235–236). This finding is consistent with the observations made on American ‘everyday fathers’ (Coltrane 1996: 12–13; Gerson 1993: 175).
How to breed nurturing fathers? What else, then, can we learn from these men’s experiences, apart from their proven capacity as fathers? It is important to examine why they became ‘nurturing fathers’ in the first place. As already mentioned, most of them are not famous writers or university professors, but ordinary company employees or civil servants; that is, they are not in a particularly privileged position to request childcare leave. Upon placing such requests, some received relatively favourable responses, while many others met with scorn or sometimes fierce criticism from their seniors and colleagues. Worse still, some ended up leaving their job (Abe 1998; Yoshida 1992). What are the decisive factors behind their conscious decision to take childcare leave and fully commit themselves as fathers? For Mutsumi Ota, an electronic engineer, it was his way of taking responsibility for having persuaded his reluctant wife to start a family (Ota 1999). Kanta Oguro, another engineer, saw it as a new challenge in his life and wanted to do something ‘unusual’ (Oguro 1998). Masaki Matsuda, a former employee at a pharmaceutical company, wanted to release some of the burden from his wife who was on the verge of collapsing, although his decision to take childcare leave eventually cost
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him his job (Abe 1998). Yoshihito Yoshida, a journalist, also ended up resigning, because his company did not grant him a childcare leave (this was in 1990 when the Child Care Leave Law had not yet been enacted). He decided to take full responsibility for taking care of his new-born twins at the cost of his own job, in order that his journalist wife could continue her work (Yoshida 1992). Apart from variations in individual circumstances, what appears to be common amongst them is a relatively relaxed attitude on this matter. This does not mean that they face no difficulties in putting their decision into action. Rather, these men seem to have taken it for granted, in a certain sense, that they should be fully committed to child rearing, for they had always assumed a more or less equal footing between husband and wife. In this respect, they represent so-called ‘tomodachi-fufu’ (friend-couples), a growing trend since the late 1970s (Carroll, Chapter 7, this volume). For them, therefore, asking for childcare leave was only one such step forward towards achieving an equal and fulfilling partnership with their wives. Also importantly, some of the men ventured into childcare leave because they read published memoirs by their predecessors or watched news reports about them on TV. Thus, the individual decisions fostered by their personal values and conjugal relationships could be pushed into practice by a subtle change in social climate as well as the newly available institutional support.
Conclusion In this chapter, I have argued that the contemporary discourses on Japanese fatherhood are neither coherent nor monolithic. They consist of divergent, contradictory views on fatherly roles and on the legitimacy of the domestic division of labour in conventional forms. As already mentioned, public concerns with men’s involvement in families have been enhanced repeatedly over the last three decades on every occasion when youth problems have received renewed attention. The latest resurgence is, however, closely related to another, nation-wide ‘sense of crisis’, namely the alarming decline of the birth rate since 1989.23 It is now more or less agreed that a major cause of this fertility decline is the established tendency for later marriages or even non-marriage. As Nagase (Chapter 3, this volume) argues, women in particular tend to show their reluctance to get married in the face of the difficulties involved in maintaining both employment and family duties, given the conventional gender division of tasks in the domestic domain (see also Ogawa and Rebick, Chapter 2 and 5, this volume). The government, industries and labour unions have been unanimous in voicing their concerns with this matter and have promised to continue their efforts to achieve better environments for child rearing. The aforementioned campaign by the Ministry of Health and Welfare in 1999 formed part of such efforts.24 The Japan Federation of Employer’s Associations (Nikkeiren) and The Japanese Trade Union Confederation (Rengo) made a joint appeal in April 2000, recognising the need to reduce women’s burdens in child birth, child rearing and housework on the one hand and to encourage men’s sharing of such domestic
Discourses and practices of fatherhood 105 responsibilities on the other. Concrete measures are to be taken to improve the working environment so that both men and women can take childcare leave, make use of flexible working hours, and receive support at the time when they return from the leave. In the same vein, Jisedai Ikusei Shien Taisaku Suishin Ho (Law promoting support measures for fostering next generations), enacted in July 2003, stipulates that national and local governments, enterprises and public citizens should take responsibility for planning and implementing such measures. According to official guidelines, released prior to this legislation, one of the core schemes in such measures is the revision of work patterns (for both men and women), including the introduction of equal treatment of part-timers and job sharing (MHLW 2003). This is significant because, without changing the current practice concerning long working hours and frequent inter-local transfers, only the privileged few can become involved fathers. Although fathers’ childcare leave will serve as an important starting point for active fatherhood, it is even more vital that working couples should continue balancing work and family commitments on a daily basis after the initial year of child rearing has passed. Given a prolonged period of recession in Japan’s economy, however, the general climate is far from favourable for such governmental initiatives. At the moment, what is most important for many employees, men and women alike, is to secure employment. We therefore still have to monitor carefully whether the positive and down-to-earth notion of fatherhood can survive this economic backlash.
Notes 1 The Child Care Leave Law (Ikuji Kyugyo-Ho) came into effect in 1992 and was revised in 2002, incorporating the care of elderly parents. The revised Child Care and Family Care Leave Law (Ikuji Kaigo Kyugyo-Ho) prohibits dismissals and any unfavourable treatment against workers who take this leave. Further revisions, including a possible extension of childcare leave up to 18 months, were made in April 2005. 2 The latest figure recorded is 0.5 per cent for 2003. 3 A group of men based in Kansai area took initiatives in so-called ‘Men’s Lib movement’ by starting regular meetings in 1991. The group consisted of men with various occupations including academics, students, company employees, day-labourers, and house-husbands. They have discussed their personal problems in their daily relationships with their wives and colleagues, the issues of violence and masculinity, male involvement in the care of aged parents, etc. What they have intended, according to one of the proponents of the idea, is to explore the possibilities of personal liberations from the social pressure to be a masculine man (Ito 1996). 4 See, for example, Inamura 1980, Kamidera 1978, Wagatsuma 1977, and the feature articles on father–child relationships, published in semi-academic journals specializing in psychology such as Jido Shinri and Gendai-no-Esprit (Gendai-no-Esprit no. 96 1975; Jido-Shinri March 1980, January 1988). See also White (2002: 108). 5 See Trifiletti (Chapter 11, this volume) for a similar emphasis on the nostalgic portrayal of the past family in Italy. 6 In this line of argument, ‘society’ is, more often than not, deemed to be synonymous with the ‘workplace’ that lies beyond the everyday world of the wife and children. This assumption itself seems hardly relevant to the present situation of many families, given the fact that the number of double-income households has exceeded that of single-income households (with an income-earning husband and a non-working wife)
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since 1997 (Cabinet Office 2003: 40). Even in the case of single-income households, non-working mothers are much more informed of what is going on in their neighbourhood, larger communities and schools, which should also be considered as an important part of ‘society’. This trend of publishing firsthand accounts based on one’s own experiences of child birth and subsequent child rearing started with some well-known female writers and cartoonists such as Ito (1992), Ishizaka (1993) and Matsui (1994). Interestingly, however, their male counterparts are mostly so-far unknown ‘ordinary’ citizens (e.g. Ota 1992; Tajiri 1990; Wakita et al. 2000). We find a tint of irony in this contrast in a sense that the mother who publicly narrates her childcare experiences needs to be a celebrity to start with, for what she does is essentially what all mothers are expected to do. On the other hand, any nurturing father can draw public attention because of his rarity. For instance, a loosely organized body called IKUJIREN (an abbreviation for Otoko mo Onna mo Ikuji Jikan o! Renrakukai, or Network Promoting Childcare Hours for Both Men and Women) has been active in this area since the beginning of the 1980s. Ishii-Kuntz (2003) gives a detailed account of its activities, including the results of the interviews with its members. The numbers of valid responses for the 2000 and 1993 surveys were 3,378 and 3,783 respectively. The sampling population of both of the surveys was men and women over twenty years of age. The sampling population of this survey was men and women over twenty years of age living in both urban and rural parts of Japan, selected by two-stage stratified random sampling. Out of 5,000, completed responses were 3,404 (the response rate was 68 per cent) (Prime Minister’s Office 2000b). This survey was also conducted by the Prime Minister’s Office in 1993. The sampling population was 3,000, 2,124 of which responded (response rate was 71 per cent). Some of the questions included in this survey were repeated in the later survey quoted above (Prime Minister’s Office 1993). This survey was sponsored by MHLW and administered by Nomura Research Institute in 1997. Some 714 mothers and 652 fathers from 13 day-care centres in both metropolitan and rural parts of Japan completed questionnaires. This means that the respondents had children under seven years of age and both of the parents had a job. According to another survey, whose subject was mothers of children under seven years of age, living in the Tokyo metropolitan area, although half of the respondents regard their husbands as being committed equally to work and family, the vast majority of these husbands never prepared breakfast (72 per cent), cooked dinner (63 per cent) or folded laundry (81 per cent) (Benesse Kyoiku Kenkyusho 1997: 22). In this respect, this particular magazine is different in nature from other, more commercially oriented magazines for mothers of young children. The latter primarily deal with the issues related to childcare within homes. By contrast, most of readers of Chiisai Nakama are the parents, especially mothers, of double-income households and their children go to day-care centres. I subscribed and monitored monthly issues of this magazine between April 1997 and March 2003, and also collected a large number of other magazines, especially those featuring father roles. The 1998 edition of annual report compiled by the Ministry of Health and Welfare drew public attention by taking up shoshika (decline in the birth rate) as its main theme. There included a passage officially denying any scientific evidence for ‘sansaiji shinwa (the myth of three-year olds)’ – that is, a widely-held belief that the mothers should stay close with their children at least until they become three years old in order to ensure their sound development. Scott Coltrane, an American sociologist, reports a case study in which a wife felt increasingly mixed about the sharing of nurturing role with her husband, who became more caring and sensitive than she had expected at the outset. She then reacted in an
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17 18 19
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ambivalent way, because ‘his new-found skills intruded on her previous monopoly over the attentive and intuitive parts of parenting’ (Coltrane 1996: 13). This section makes a direct reference to their narratives in a published form only, including their published memoirs, newspaper columns and interviews quoted in newspaper or magazine articles. One of the major newspapers, Asahi Shinbun, allowed space weekly for such accounts of the men who had taken parental leave for two years (October 1997–November 1999). None of the six columnists was a professional writer. In August 2003 at a panel discussion focusing on fathers’ roles in child rearing, organized at an annual meeting of childcare specialists, employees at day cares, and parents of young children, a mother who listened to a male panellist admitting his occasional irritation with his own children said she was relieved to know that men too would feel the same way as she did, because her husband was never sympathetic to her emotions. A recent survey carried out on male civil servants who took childcare leave in 2000–2001 confirms this point. Some 79 per cent of the respondents said they realized how hard and joyful it is to raise children, and 71 per cent showed their willingness of sharing childcare tasks further (multiple answer) (NPA 2002). This resonates with my general observation of highly engaged fathers at day cares or various meetings of parents with children. They seemed not to hesitate openly exhibiting their emotional attachments with their own and other children. This particular anecdote echoes my own experience. When my partner and I took our three-month-old son to a hospital back in 1998, my partner happened to be the one who held the child in his arms and I was standing by their side. Yet the woman doctor kept addressing me, not him, even though he sat in front of her. The year 1989 was marked by the term, ‘1.57 shock’. The figure 1.57 refers to the birth rate which dropped below the previous lowest record of 1.58 in 1966, when people consciously refrained from having children because of an undesirable zodiac sign. The total birth rate further dropped to 1.29 in 2004. Such policies are also backed up by the on-going scheme of ‘Danjo Kyodo Sankaku Shakai’ (Gender-Equal Society) – Japan’s official response to a series of World Conference on Women and The Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women, adopted by the UN General Assembly in 1979 and ratified by Japan in 1985. In the spirit of kyodo sankaku ( joint-participation), men are encouraged to be more actively involved in the domestic sphere. A series of policies and measure born out of this scheme are, in theory, unrelated to the problems of declining fertility. Yet we see a clear linkage between the two.
References Abe, N. (1998) ‘Chichioya ga ikujijikan/ikukyu o toru toki’ (When Fathers Take a Timeoff and a Leave for Childcare), Chiisai Nakama, 373: 70–75. Benesse Kyoiku Kenkyusho. (1997) ‘Hahaoya wa Kawattaka’ (Have mothers changed?), Monograph Series: Shogakusei Now (Primary School Children Now), 17(1). Cabinet Office. (2003) FY 2002 Annual Report on the State of Formation of a GenderEqual Society, Outline. Coltrane, S. (1996) Family Man: Fatherhood, Housework, and Gender Equity, New York: Oxford University Press. Dienhart, A. (1998) Reshaping Fatherhood: The Social Construction of Shared Parenting, London: Sage. Dowd, N. E. (2000) Redefining Fatherhood, New York: New York University Press. Gerson, K. (1993) No Man’s Land: Men’s Changing Commitments to Family and Work, New York: Basic Books.
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Hayashi, M. (1996) Fusei no Fukken (Reinstatement of Fatherhood), Tokyo: Chuo-Koron. —— (1998) Fusei de Sodateyo (Raise your children with fatherhood), Kyoto: PHP. Hirai, N., K. Saito, K. Tamura, H. Hara and M. Takahashi (1993) Shin Chichioya no Jiten (A New Dictionary of Fathers), Tokyo: Gyosei. Inamura, H. (1980) Kateinai Boryoku (Domestic violence), Tokyo: Shinyo. Ishii-Kuntz, M. (2003) ‘Balancing fatherhood and work: emergence of diverse masculinities in contemporary Japan’, in J. E. Roberson and N. Suzuki (eds) Men and Masculinities in Contemporary Japan, London: RoutledgeCurzon, pp. 198–216. Ishizaka, K. (1993) Akachan ga Kita (A Baby Has Come), Tokyo: Asahi Shimbun. Ito, H. (1992) [1985] Yoi Oppai, Warui Oppai (Good Breasts, Bad Breasts), Tokyo: Shuei. Ito, K. (1996) Danseigaku Nyumon (Introduction to Men’s Studies), Tokyo: Sakuhinsha. Kamidera, H. (1992) [1978] Chichioya no Deban (Father’s Turn), Tokyo: Mikasa-Shobo. Kashiwagi, K. (ed.) (1993) Chichioya no Hattatsu-Shinrigaku (Developmental Psychology of Fathers), Tokyo: Kawashima. Matsui, N. (1994) Warau Shussan (Laughing Childbirth), Tokyo: Joho Center Shuppankyoku. MHLW Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare. (2003) ‘Jisedai ikusei shien ni kansuru tomen no torikumi hoshin-gaiyo’ (Policy concerning support for raising the next generation – Outline) Dai-nanakai rodo seisakaku shingikai koyo kinto bunka-kai (The seventeenth meeting of the Employment Equality Committee of the Labour Policy Deliberative Council.) Online. Available http://www.mhlw.go.jp/shingi/2003/03/ s0318–8i.html (Accessed 6 July 2005). Nishi, S. (1992) [1989] Papa wa Gokigen Naname (Papa is Cross), Tokyo: Shuei. NPA National Personnel Authority. (2002) ‘Ippanshoku no kokka komuin no ikuji kyugyo nado jittai chosa kekka’ (Results of a survey on childcare leave by national civil servants in the general personnel track) From a press release on 28 August. Online. Available http://www.jinji.go.jp/kisya/0208/ikuji.pdf (Accessed 7 July 2005). Oguro, K. (1998) ‘A Leave for Two Months’, Ikujiren News, 68: 22–24. Ota, M. (1992) Otoko mo Ikuji-Kyushoku (Men Too Take Childcare Leave), Tokyo: Shinhyoron. —— (1999) ‘Dad Takes Child-care Leave’, Japan Quarterly, 46 (1): 83–89. Prime Minister’s Office. (1993) Dansei no Raifu Sutairu ni Kansuru Seron Chosa (A Public Opinion Survey on Men’s Life Styles), Tokyo: The Prime Minister’s Office. —— (2000a) Danjo Kyodo Sankaku ni kansuru Seron Chosa (A Public Opinion Survey on Gender-Equal Society), Tokyo: The Prime Minister’s Office. —— (2000b) Danjo Kyodo Sankaku ni kansuru Seron Chosa – Dansei no Raifu Sutairu wo Chushin-ni (A Public Opinion Survey on Gender-Equal Society – with a Focus on Men’s Life Styles), Tokyo: The Prime Minister’s Office. Pruett, K. D. (1988) The Nurturing Father, New York: Warner Books. Statistics Bureau, Ministry of Public Management, Home Affairs, Posts and Telecommunications. (2001), ‘Basic Survey of Social Life’, Tokyo: Statistics Bureau, Ministry of Public Management, Home Affairs, Posts and Telecommunications. Tajiri, K. (1990) Tosan wa Jitensha ni Notte (Our Father Rides a Bicycle), Kyoto: Yukku. Takahashi, H. (1980) ‘Fushi–kankei to haha no yakuwari’ (Father–Child Relationships and the Role of Mothers), Jido-Shinri, 34: 41–48. Wagatsuma, H. (1977) ‘Some Aspects of the Contemporary Japanese Family: Once Confucian, Now Fatherless?’, Daedalus, 106: 181–210. Wakita, Y., S. Tsuchida, K. Nakamura, Y. Kozaki, M. Ota and T. Nakasaka (2000) Ikukyu-Tosan no Seicho Nisshi (Diary of Growing Fathers on Childcare Leave), Tokyo: Asahi Shimbun. White, M. I. (2002) Perfectly Japanese, Berkeley: University of California Press. Yoshida, Y. (1992) Bokura no Papa wa Kakedashi Shufu (Our Dad is a Novice Househusband), Tokyo: Asahi Shimbun.
7
Changing language, gender and family relations in Japan Tessa Carroll
Introduction A Japanese government document from the mid-1990s points out that, ‘[a]s the economic, child-rearing, and care and support functions of the family decline, so there is an increasing emphasis on the psychological function of the family as a source of comfort and relaxation’ (Economic Planning Agency 1995). Looking at how language is used within the family can shed light on changes in family function and structure, as well as on the wider socioeconomic background. This chapter examines several aspects of language usage within the family: relations between the genders, between the generations and between siblings. In each case these are placed in the context of the broader sociocultural and socioeconomic changes that impact upon the family and on linguistic patterns. Particular areas of concern about language usage in the family and society are also discussed, illustrating how boundaries within the family and between families and the outside world are shifting and blurring. Although the focus is on contemporary Japan, historical comparisons will be drawn in order to illustrate the extent of the changes and their significance. Much of the information comes from my own interviews with researchers on language, conversations with friends in various professions and general observations of people’s linguistic behaviour, all carried out during extended periods of living in Japan in the early to mid-1980s and subsequent research visits (the most recent in January 2002). These data are supplemented by surveys from various official bodies, media accounts and other secondary sources. To understand the recent and ongoing changes in language use within the family, it is necessary to bear in mind some key features of Japanese sociolinguistic behaviour and of family structure which I will outline in the first part of the chapter.
Honorific language, male and female language and indirect communication Japanese is well known for its complex system of honorific and polite language based on a combination of hierarchy and shifting in- and out-group relations, and
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for the existence of clearly differentiated male and female language. The emphasis on communicating indirectly and saving face is also well known. These linguistic systems and communication habits are not fixed, but reflect changes in society over time. A detailed description of honorific language (keigo) is beyond the scope of this chapter.1 Put briefly, it involves the use of particular vocabulary and grammatical forms on two axes: hierarchy and familiarity. These linguistic features are accompanied by appropriate non-verbal behaviour, such as bowing, nodding to indicate one is paying attention and body posture. On the first axis, respectful and humble forms indicate deference and respect to the referent (who may or may not be the addressee). On the second, polite or plain verb and adjective endings show formality or informality, psychological distance or closeness. Respect and deference on one hand or neutrality on the other can thus be combined with familiarity/ informality or unfamiliarity/formality. Male language usage and female usage in Japanese differ significantly in clearly codified ways, and people are familiar with these differences, even if this awareness is in the form of stereotypes. Gender roles have traditionally been clearly defined, at least in the upper and middle classes, and reflected in language. The differences are most obvious in casual, informal speech, but more limited in formal speech (Maynard 1997: 72–73). This means that many of the differences and changes in usage show up within the informal setting of the family. Masculine language tends to be direct, uses less honorific language and more plain forms than female language and is also characterized by certain interactional particles which occur at the end of a phrase or sentence to express the speaker’s judgement and attitude towards the message and the person to whom he or she is speaking. Feminine language uses different interactional particles, tends towards the omission of plain verb forms, less direct expressions and greater use of polite and honorific language (particularly reciprocal use) and is softer overall. Although these speech styles are generally termed masculine and feminine, they are perhaps better characterized as being part of a broader continuum from ‘blunt’ to ‘gentle’. Both men and women may use a more gentle or more blunt style depending on the situation; for example, men will often speak more gently to small children (Jorden 1983a,b). Nevertheless, the broad distinction between masculine and feminine language still holds. Typical male and female speech models are markedly different, and girls and boys are both expected and trained by society to speak differently. In particular, girls and women are expected to speak more politely than boys and men. Children grow up following the role models of adults or older children, and are encouraged by their families and society to speak or avoid speaking in certain ways. It has been argued that the apparent male/female difference in the use of honorific language is ‘not sex-oriented, but social-role oriented’ (Hori 1986: 374), and that differences between male and female speech patterns arise from ‘the different sorts of company men and women keep or the different roles they play in society’ (ibid.: 385). The idea is expressed in more general terms by the social anthropologist, Takie Sugiyama Lebra, in her claim that the hierarchical
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orientation of Japanese society overrides gender (Lebra 1984: 242–243). This means that, as the roles played by men and women change and particularly as women move into new areas of work, so the language they use is also changing. The third aspect of Japanese sociolinguistic usage of relevance here is the value placed on indirect communication to avoid hurting the feelings of others and to maintain good relations. Although the ‘in-group’ setting of the family might seem to be one where such considerations would be less important, it is in fact where the socialization into these communication habits begins, and where problems arising from their limitations can be most extreme, as will be discussed later.
Changing family structures The stereotypical, traditional Japanese family is the three-generational, patrilineal and patrilocal stem family of the ie (household, house, family). Marriage was more a way of furthering the fortunes of the ie than of individual preference. The eldest son was expected to carry on the family business and to bring a bride into the household to bear children and to look after his parents. The other siblings would marry and move out, either setting up their own households or marrying into others. In such patrilocal households, the relationship between a wife and her parents-in-law was very much a matter of relative status, with the wife being subservient to them as well as to her husband. The relationship between a young wife and her mother-in-law was often notoriously difficult (Cherry 1987: 133–134; Lebra 1984: 141–146). Families conformed to the Confucianist hierarchical view of society, where age took precedence over youth, and men over women. This was reflected in language usage, with those of lower status using honorific language to address or refer to those of higher status. Moreover, personal referents were mainly terms for positions within the family – father, mother, older brother, older sister, with first names only being used to those below oneself in the hierarchy. The differences in status would be evident in the language used, with the wife using more polite and honorific language to her husband and in-laws than they to her. An extract from the cartoon strip Tsuri-Baka Nisshi in a magazine for foreign learners of Japanese, Mangajin, illustrates the traditional linguistic subordination of wife to husband with an exchange between a middle-aged couple. When the husband comes home early, she asks him what the matter is (Do nasatta no?) using the honorific verb nasaru (showing deference) but in the plain form (showing informality and closeness). The explanation points out that ‘[o]bserving the traditional social hierarchy in this way is considered a sign of good breeding or refinement’ (Mangajin 1992: 22). The language in Yasujiro Ozu’s 1953 film Tokyo Story is another example: a young widow uses polite honorific language to her parents-in-law; her father-in-law uses plain forms to both her and his wife; and the mother-in-law uses quite respectful language to her husband (Statler et al. 1984: 202–203). The postwar period saw great social changes, with large-scale migration from the country to the cities and the rise of the nuclear family. Nevertheless, this did not mean the end of the ie system, as Ochiai (1997) demonstrates. The majority
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of families in the 1960s were nuclear simply because the generation born in the years 1925–1950 had many siblings. It was not a matter of the ie system disintegrating – in fact, the number of three-generational households remained relatively stable – but of the number of nuclear households increasing greatly and so changing the balance (Ochiai 1997: 61–63). Although the number of threegenerational households has remained fairly constant, they occupy a smaller proportion of the total number of households. In more recent years, the number of single-person households has also grown, from 13.2 per cent in the 1970s to 20.8 per cent in the 1980s and then 23.8 per cent in the 1990s (UNESCAP no date). The upward trend has continued, with the figure reaching 25.6 per cent in 2000 (National Institute of Population and Social Security Research 2003). (See also Economic Planning Agency 1995, and Ogawa, Chapter 2, this volume, for more statistics on household composition). There has also been a change in the composition of three-generational families. A growing number of married couples are living with or close to the wife’s parents, and fewer are living with the husband’s parents. Such arrangements remove the strain of the relationship between daughter-in-law and mother-in-law and the appropriate careful, polite, honorific language. In the early 1990s, the idea of dual-household (three-generation) houses with separate entrances and kitchens began to be marketed with some success (Brown 1996; Ochiai 1997: 160). Dwellings of this kind facilitate a compromise between independence and the need for support for elderly parents and may mean that grandparents are available to help out more with childcare for working mothers. The absence of grandparents is cited as one reason for a perceived decline in children’s spoken skills, as I will discuss later, so if similar living arrangements become more popular and begin to reverse the trend of fewer elderly people living with their children, there is likely to be an impact on children’s language training and usage.
Family and work As discussed elsewhere in this volume, recent years have seen substantial changes in the respective roles and expectations of men and women, and these are reflected in changing language usage in society as a whole and within the family. Although the majority of Japanese still marry, both women and men are increasingly delaying marriage for a number of reasons, as outlined in the introduction to this volume and examined by Nagase (Chapter 3, this volume). Women are more likely to continue to work after marriage and even after having children. This puts them on a more equal footing with their husbands, although there may still be a clear division of roles, particularly once children appear. The number of children per family has fallen dramatically, and the reduction in average family size is another factor that has had an impact on communication within the family and in more general terms. Working patterns for women have also changed considerably over the centuries, with corresponding effects on family dynamics and language. In pre-industrialized Japan, women, apart from those of the samurai upper classes, would be working in the family business or farm, or as servants. Ochiai (1997: 21, 31–35) describes
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how the role of a full-time housewife only took root on a mass basis in Japan during the era of rapid economic growth of the post-war period, first appearing in the lower-salaried middle class during the boom period after the First World War and growing along with the white-collar sector after the Second World War. Since then, women’s educational levels have risen, and opportunities for work outside the home and family businesses have expanded. The standard company practice of requiring women to leave their jobs when they married, or, at the latest, when they had their first child, has been harder to use since being declared unconstitutional2 in 1966 (Cherry 1987: 106), although subtle pressure is still frequently applied (Jolivet 1997: 50). The Equal Employment Opportunity Law of 1986 also promotes equality in working conditions for men and women (recruitment, employment opportunities, promotion) (Iwao 1993: 176–179). Economic factors, notably the need to pay for children’s higher education and the phenomenal rise in land and housing prices in the cities during the bubble economy of the late 1980s, put pressure on wives and mothers to continue to work outside the home, albeit mostly on a part-time basis. Already by 1984, two thirds of working women were married, as compared to one-third in 1962 (Cherry 1987: 96). In 2004, 22 million women were in paid employment, accounting for 41 per cent of the workforce (Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communication 2005), a vast increase from 3.6 million female paid employees in 1950 (Japan Institute of Workers’ Evolution 2003). Interestingly, there is some evidence that women are transferring linguistic strategies from the family to their work, blurring the boundary between the private and public spheres. Smith’s (1992) analysis of spoken directives in selected television programmes shows women using two particular strategies to give orders to subordinates. One of these she terms ‘Motherese’, that is, forms that are frequently used by mothers speaking to their children. Smith’s study found that these forms were primarily used by women to younger subordinates in relatively informal situations (Smith 1992: 77–78). While this kind of approach would almost certainly seem patronizing in English, I would argue that in Japanese it is used to diffuse the tension that might result from a woman giving orders and to create a familiar and familial relationship between superiors and subordinates. As women’s average educational levels continue to rise, it is likely that more will take up managerial and specialist positions and that the male/female wage differential will be reduced. This trend will bring about not only ‘important changes in the relationship between men and women in Japan, and in the nature of the Japanese family’ (Economic Planning Agency 1995), but also in linguistic habits at work and home.
Marital relationship As roles and expectations within the marital relationship change, so these changes are reflected in language usage. The old miai system of matchmakers introducing prospective marriage partners is now giving way to ren’ai kekkon (love marriages), although the two categories may overlap (Lebra 1984: 88). According to the National Institute of Population and Social Security Research, three-quarters of marriages in 1948 were arranged, and the number had fallen to
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less than one-tenth in 1998 (Trends in Japan 1998); by 2002, only 7.4 per cent of marriages were arranged (Yoshida 2004). If and when women do decide to get married, their requirements of a potential husband are evolving all the time. From the 1980s through the 1990s, the san-ko (‘three highs’: being tall, having a high income and a high level of education) were supplemented by the san-ryo (‘three goods’: being good-looking, good-natured, and from a good background) (Jolivet 1997: 142). Income remains important for women, because of their lesser earning power compared to men and the continuing assumption that it is the man’s role to support his family. However, apart from this economic imperative, men and women are converging on what they are looking for in their partners. In an online survey of single men in their twenties and thirties carried out in March 2003, both men and women gave ‘character’ as the most important attribute in a potential spouse, followed by ‘kindness and consideration’ and ‘compatibility’ by men, and ‘shared values’ and ‘income and wealth’ by women (Trends in Japan 2003). A desire for a more equal relationship might reasonably be surmised from these findings, and with it, a more egalitarian use of language between spouses. How couples address and refer to each other illustrates much about the marital relationship. I have already noted that women have tended to speak more politely to their husbands than vice versa, and the same is true in terms of address. When Lebra interviewed couples in the late 1970s, she found that many wives were embarrassed when asked how they addressed their husbands. The most common answer was oto-san (father). In other words, they addressed him in terms of his position within the family from the children’s point of view, rather than as an individual or their husband. Furthermore, two of the women in their thirties had started to use this term even before they had children. Lebra argues that the use of fictive kinship terms results from ‘[c]ultural pressure [that] creates a tendency to resort to a term shared by all (or most) members of the household in avoidance of a term indicative of a unique and exclusive relationship between the addressor and addressee’ (Lebra 1984: 127).3 Other wives used anata (you) or attention-seeking utterances such as chotto (hey; just a minute) before children arrived. In some cases, the husband’s occupation was used; for example, a doctor’s wife addressed him as sensei as his patients would. For the older informants, using their husbands’ given names would have been ‘either offensive or embarrassing’. In Toshie Nagura’s data on address terms used between 150 couples, the majority of wives addressed their husbands as anata (67.2 per cent), but almost one-third preferred to use a fictive kinship term (for example, oto-san) (Nagura 1992: 53). Lebra found that husbands, in contrast, could address their wives by their given names because they were lower in status, but many used oka-san (mother), the masculine attention-seeking utterance oi (oy! hey) (Lebra 1984: 127–128), or the masculine words for ‘you’, omae or kimi (Cherry 1987: 68). Nagura found that omae was the most common term used by husbands (52.2 per cent), closely followed by kimi and anta (41.2 per cent); she notes that the latter is less polite than anata but with no derogative connotation ‘and is therefore good enough among equals’ (1992: 53). However, even in the late 1970s, Lebra noted a shift amongst her younger informants towards both husband and wife using each other’s given name or
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nickname as terms of address and reference, albeit with the wife using the respectful title -san after the name and the husband just using the given name, or perhaps an abbreviated name with the affectionate title -chan (Lebra 1984: 129). Nagura’s data confirms this asymmetry: of the 120 husbands who used their wives’ names, 69.5 per cent used the name alone, whereas 83.4 per cent of the 88 wives who used their husbands’ names added -san (Nagura 1992: 53). Ochiai traces what may be the beginning of this trend to the short-lived media phenomenon of the ‘new family’, which appeared in 1976 and was characterized by a ‘trend toward equality in the marriage relationship, or what was known as the tomodachi fufu (friend-couple, or married couple who are friends – a pairing of two concepts not previously associated in Japanese)’. In these ‘friend-couples’, ‘partners were said to be calling each other by their personal names or pet names’ (Ochiai 1997: 105–106). There is evidence that this trend is growing: in the online survey cited above, around half of the respondents cited ‘the couple always address each other by their first names’ as an attribute of the ideal married couple (Trends in Japan 2003). Reciprocal use of first names between spouses implies a more equal relationship where each is an individual, rather than simply fulfilling a role – ‘wife’ or ‘mother’. As noted earlier, addressing someone by their given name only was formerly reserved for use by close relatives higher in status. Thus, Hori notes that [e]ven a couple being married for many years are addressed by the parentsin-law by the first name with -san. Calling the son/daughter-in-law by the first name without -san is perhaps felt [to be] invading the territory of their real parents. (2000: 65) Amongst people in their teens and twenties, however, usage is changing. In a recent survey of female university students, 67.6 per cent of responses gave ‘first name’ as a term of address used for their close friends (ibid.). Even between the sexes, the reciprocal use, not only of given names instead of family names, but also omitting even the titles -san/chan/kun, appears to be growing. Thus the boundaries between family and friends, uchi (inside, in-group) and soto (outside, out-group) are blurring. The words used to refer to one’s spouse are also loaded with differential status and gender stereotypes. The word most commonly used to refer to one’s own wife, kanai, is written with two Chinese characters that literally mean ‘inside the house’, and is therefore objected to by many younger men and women. Some men may use, more informally, nyobo, a word originally used to refer to the court-ladies’ quarters (Cherry 1987: 67). To avoid these connotations, younger men may also use the English loanword waifu, or even their wife’s given name. Similarly, the traditional words to refer to one’s own husband, shujin or danna (master), are seen negatively by many young couples, who prefer to avoid them. It is quite common for women to refer to their husbands simply by their family name, for example Imashiro or Abe, which avoids the subservience implied in shujin or danna but is
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far less intimate than it would be to use the husband’s given name. One of Lebra’s young informants even referred to her husband by his given name with the respectful -san (Lebra 1984: 129), a form that breaks the convention of not using honorifics in referring to one’s in-group when speaking to an out-group member. Relationships within the family are also reflected in another aspect of terms of address: family names. Japanese law currently requires married couples to take one name, either the husband’s or wife’s, but in practice the overwhelming majority, 97 per cent, take the husband’s name (Tonippo 2004). In this way, the wife symbolically leaves her own family and becomes part of her husband’s. Since the late 1980s, people have been campaigning for a change in the Civil Code to allow both partners officially to retain their family names if they so wish, but this is opposed by conservatives who see ‘one name’ as symbolic of family unity (Carroll 1996). Public support for a change in the law is growing rapidly, from 55 per cent in 1996 to 65 per cent in 2002, according to a Cabinet survey (Kakuchi 2003). However, to date, the more conservative elements of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party have continued to reject radical change. There are cases where a man takes on his wife’s family name, notably when he is taken as mukoyoshi (adopted son-in-law) into a family which has no suitable male heir to continue the family business. This was historically a common practice but is less popular today (Lebra 1984: 20; Ochiai 1997: 153–155). Not only do mukoyoshi take on their wife’s family name, but ‘[s]ome even shock their male buddies by using polite language to address the wives to whom they owe their names’ (Cherry 1987: 64). Such behaviour supports the argument of Lebra and Hori noted earlier, that the hierarchical orientation of Japanese society overrides gender. In these cases, it is the man who must ‘become dyed in the family ways’ (ibid.: 60). The idea of a man taking on his wife’s family name is, even today, so closely associated with the custom of mukoyoshi that many people find it hard to accept that he might do so for other reasons. I was told of one such case where one of the groom’s colleagues, acting as a witness at the marriage registration, warned him that people might think that he wanted to become a mukoyoshi to acquire his wife’s parents’ money. The bride’s parents also wondered why the groom was taking their family name when they already had a son.4
Parent–child and sibling relationships The relationship between parents and their children is changing, as the old Confucian family model has been eroded and increasingly replaced by western ideas of democracy and equality. [Psychologists] see parents becoming less ‘parental’, more concerned with developing friendly relationships with their children. The traditional parent–child relationship, characterized on the one hand by benevolence and clear direction, and on the other by obedience and filiality, has, it is said, been replaced by a tomodachi no yo na (like friends) relationship. (White 1994: 53)
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This shift is reflected in address terms. Passin (1980: 14–16) noted over twenty years ago the growing use of the loanwords mama and papa, arguing that these words do not carry the historical weight of strictness and discipline of oka-san (mother) and oto-san (father) and are ‘chummier’. The dramatic recent change in the age distribution of Japan’s population and the resulting problems of an ageing population are much discussed (see Ogawa, Chapter 2 and Izuhara, Chapter 10, this volume). Japan now has the highest average life expectancy in the world, 85.3 years for women and 78.4 years for men in 2003 (Statistics Bureau no date). Birthrates have also fallen dramatically, partly because of the fall in child mortality, but also because people (particularly women) are marrying later, having children later and wanting fewer of them. Ochiai (1997: 176) notes that ‘[i]n the case of birthrates, [. . .] the European regional pattern which Japan most closely resembles is that of Southern Europe’ (see also Bettio, Chapter 4, this volume). In 2003 in Japan, the average number of children per woman was at a low of 1.29, that is, below the rate needed to replace the population (Statistics Bureau no date). The reduction in average family size has an impact on communication within the family and in more general terms. The friendly relationships implied in the use of mama and papa may be easier to establish in smaller nuclear families, but smaller families are not invariably seen as positive. Children with only one sibling or none become the main focus of maternal attention, and ‘[p]sychologists are concerned that children in small families will be indulged and not properly trained at home, and that without siblings they will not learn to cooperate and compete well’ (White 1994: 53). As the number of children per family has fallen and sibling relationships are reduced in number and complexity, relationships with friends at school become more important. Relationships with peers in the same school-year are generally more equal than those between siblings, because there is very little age difference. However, in the school clubs that play a major part in the social life of most children at junior and senior high school, hierarchy still dominates. These clubs are the main arena for schoolchildren to learn about senpai–kohai (senior–junior) relations and honorific language. This was certainly the view of kokugo (Japanese language and literature) high school teachers whom I interviewed in January 2002; in fact, the recurrent comment was that pupils were more polite and used more honorific language to their seniors in the clubs than to their teachers. Various aspects of school social life and adolescent psychology may contribute to these differences in language usage. Many school clubs, particularly those for sports and martial arts, are known for imposing harsh discipline on their members via the teachers and the senpai, and failure to show due respect may have severe physical consequences. Bullying in schools grew to a major social problem in the mid-1980s, and, although figures from the Ministry for Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology indicate that the number of cases fell between 1995 and 1999 (Sugito 2002), it is still a feature of school life. Showing deference to one’s seniors and to potential bullies may be a survival strategy. It is also likely that peer pressure to appear ‘cool’ militates against showing respect to teachers by using honorific language.
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The amount of contact that fathers have with their children has also changed dramatically during the postwar period. Fathers have suffered a decline in status within the family as they have fulfilled the demands of rebuilding and expanding the economy. Merry White (1994: 59) notes that ‘[a]ttitudes toward fathers in Japan seem to have changed much more than attitudes to mothers. [. . .] The father–child relationship in Japan used to be “terrible, like earthquake and thunder”, but the discipline and role-model functions have atrophied along with his presence and energy at home’. The sarariiman of Japan spend most of their days at work, or in long commutes, or socialising for work. Many are tanshin funin, that is, they have been transferred by their companies for a year or more to branches in other cities and have left their families behind to avoid disrupting the children’s all-important education; they may or may not return at weekends. As a result, many fathers are simply not around to spend time with and talk to their children. Jolivet (1997: 61) cites a government survey which found that 37.4 per cent of the fathers surveyed said they had no contact with their children during the working week, and 16.1 per cent said they had no contact even on public holidays. However, there is evidence of a shift in attitudes here: Jolivet (ibid.: 176–177) also notes an increasing willingness amongst men in their early and mid-thirties to help their wives with childcare and housework, although women still do by far the greater part of this work. Nakatani’s research (Chapter 6, this volume) on the emergence of nurturing fathers is of particular interest in this regard. If such fathers increase to become commonplace rather than rarities highlighted in the media, there may be significant effects on the language usage and communication habits of children. The previous discussion deals with language usage in families with young and school-age children, but the phenomenon of more and more children continuing to live with their parents until their late twenties or thirties, negatively termed ‘parasite singles’ by Masahiro Yamada (2000), is one much discussed in the media since the late 1990s. Nagase (Chapter 3, this volume) analyses the trend and its causes and argues that it is not simply the case, as claimed by Yamada, that these young people just want to enjoy an easy and affluent lifestyle, but that changes in the labour market and differential employment practices for men and women combine to delay marriage and hence extend the period that young people remain at the parental home. A similar trend in Italy is discussed by Bettio (Chapter 4, this volume). In Japan, the trend is already having an impact on family dynamics: If the number of parasite singles increases, the relationship between parent and child will change and so will the function of the family. Some parasite singles could spend as much as half their lives with their parents. For those people, the intergenerational relationship will be transformed into a close friendship rather than the traditional parent–child relationship. This trend has already been seen between mother and daughter. (Takahashi and Voss 2000)
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If the parent–child relationship develops in this way from an authoritarian Confucian model to a more friendly and egalitarian one, this might be expected to influence language usage and communication patterns.
Concerns about changes in language usage within the family Changes in family and social circumstances have led to many changes in language usage, some of which are seen as negative by language planners, commentators in the media and the general public. Perhaps the greatest concern expressed in the media and by people concerned with language and education is an apparent deterioration of spoken skills in children compared to previous generations. Some of the contributory factors are raised in the round-table discussion and papers in Hanashiai (Bunka-cho 1992), one of the series of books on language issues produced by the Language Section of the Agency of Cultural Affairs and aimed at the general public. As greater numbers of mothers work outside the home, their time with the children is reduced. The relative growth of the nuclear family and increased mobility mean that there are fewer grandparents on hand to interact with and to provide alternative language models. Fathers are often largely absent from home; children may be spending most of their time studying, whether at school, at cram school ( juku) or doing homework. The ubiquitous presence of the television leads to less conversation, and its influence on the spoken language of children is not always benign. Smaller families mean that more children have rooms of their own and spend much time there; the time devoted to computer games is a particular concern in this context, just as in other countries (ibid.). All of these factors are aspects of family life, but they are also the consequences of social, economic, cultural and technological change – the family cannot be separated from the society of which it is a part, nor blamed for all its ills. More recently, the devotion of young Japanese to mobile phones, textmessages and the expansion of e-mail have also increased concerns that they are less comfortable with face-to-face communication. According to the sociologist Hisao Ishii, for teenagers using mobile phones ‘[i]t is not the content of the communication but the act of staying in touch that matters. Indeed, many become extremely uneasy if unable to contact their peers countless times each day, fearing they are becoming socially isolated’. He fears that such young people will become addicted to their mobile phones, incapable of forming relationships without them and that superficial communication will replace genuine conversation (Fitzpatrick 2001). If Ishii is right, it might be predicted that the emphasis on non-verbal communication that has characterized Japanese society will wane. Although people can supplement the verbal content of e-mails with ‘emoticons’ to compensate to some extent for the lack of non-verbal cues, they are a very much less subtle means of communication. Some attempts have been made in schools to improve communication ability. One scheme at a Kawasaki elementary school in the early 1990s focused on
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spoken skills for fifteen minutes a week. The teachers felt that the children were poor at expressing themselves; although they talked a lot, they tended to use single words, did not listen properly and clammed up in formal situations. One educationalist thought that children lacked the ability to put themselves in the place of the listener, and that this was the result of parents and teachers anticipating their needs too much and thereby encouraging passivity (Yomiuri Shinbun 1993a). Traditional child-rearing practices in Japan have specifically aimed to develop such culturally valued skills of omoiyari (empathy, consideration for others) and intuitive and indirect communication (Clancy 1990). Today’s smaller families may make these practices difficult to carry out: children may have only one or no siblings with whom to interact and learn sensitivity to others. Such problems and concerns are of course not unique to Japan. Remarkably similar comments appeared in the British press in January 2003, when Alan Wells, the director of the government’s Basic Skills Agency, spoke at a conference about a decline in communication between parents and children, summed up as ‘the daily grunt’. The causes he listed were almost the same as those given in Japan: parents’ long working hours, too much time spent by children watching television and not enough talking at the dinner table as a family and the fact that grandparents were often not around to pass on parenting skills. The increase in one-parent families was the one additional cause not (yet?) cited in Japan. Wells also advocated classes for parents in how to talk and play with their children (Innes 2003; McKie 2003). In Italy too, television has been criticized as promoting ‘ “bad” linguistic trends’ that are then acquired by the younger generations (Tosi 2001: 19). In Japan, a lack of good communication is seen as a major source of problems experienced by more nuclear, fragmented families; problems not discussed may explode into violence. A contributor to Hanashiai notes that communicative patterns can lag behind changes in the family, and that it can be difficult to discuss and negotiate when the historical idea of hierarchy within the family still influences people’s behaviour (Bunka-cho 1992: 61–62). White notes that [V]ocal or physical confrontation in the Japanese family is very rare. Subtler communication of displeasure usually works. Negative communication in Japan is often accomplished through silence. Having to say no represents to some parents that their silence has failed to communicate. Children too retreat rather than attack, but they may be more visibly unhappy. (1994: 65) The final sentence here indicates that indirect communication may no longer meet the needs of today’s families and society. Withdrawal and silence are increasingly an expression of unresolved problems. The recent high-profile phenomenon of hikikomori, where teenagers and young people, mainly male, become recluses in a room of the parental household, refusing to communicate (in extreme cases, even with family members) or come out for months or even years at a time, tends to be seen partly as a result of lack of communication skills, although it could be
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argued that the lack of communication skills is partly caused by the withdrawal from society. The behaviour is often considered to be a reaction to intolerable pressure of some kind (exams, bullying, the need to conform or the competitive nature of Japanese society), and those affected feel unable to discuss these problems with their family or friends and retreat into solitude. Moreover, their parents collude in this silence and withdrawal, often being too ashamed of the social stigma of mental illness, with which hikikomori is associated, to seek help. A former hikikomori young man, now a counsellor for others with the same problems, interviewed in a recent UK television documentary,5 said that communication (komyunikeshon, the Japanese pronunciation of the English word taken into Japanese as a loanword) was a major problem in such cases. The documentary focused on the more extreme and sensationalist aspects of the phenomenon; Shiokura (2000) offers a more balanced and detailed analysis. Silence is a wellrecognized means of expressing defiance or passive resistance in Japan (Seltman 1991), and it is not surprising that it is used by the hikikomori. Moreover, in choosing to use silence and withdrawal in this way, they are turning on its head the traditional disciplinary tactic of ignoring a child or even putting it outside the house if it misbehaves (Hendry 1987: 41, 46). Another major issue related to changing gender roles is change in female language usage. A survey carried out in 1988 by NHK, the national broadcasting organization, on male and female language usage produced the following opinions: young women’s language had become rough (arappoi); more women were using ‘slovenly’ (kitanai) and masculine language, and less honorific and feminine language; and men were also using more gender-neutral language (NHK Hoso Bunka Kenkyujo 1993: 185–186).6 The deliberate adoption by young women of masculine language and the decline in the use of honorific language seems to stem from a rejection of the traditional (if stereotypical) female role – polite, gentle, submissive. The lack of communication between the generations, discussed earlier, might also contribute to young people’s rejection of accepted social and sociolinguistic norms. At the extreme end of the spectrum, masculine, ‘slovenly’ language was viewed positively by the high school girl subcultures that developed during the 1990s, whose members deliberately used masculine language, wore dirty, scruffy clothes and behaved in ways intended to shock their elders (Kinsella 1999, 2000). A comparison could be drawn with the punk movement that developed in the mid-1970s in the UK, but the shock value of such rebellious female teenagers was probably even greater in Japan. Some of the more extreme ‘rough, slovenly’ language usage amongst teenage girls may be just a temporary phase; remarkable transformations do occur, particularly when students graduate from university and undergo intensive training in appropriate language and behaviour when they enter companies. Nevertheless, it is difficult to see these girls changing completely, and the effects of linguistic and social training for work are unlikely to permeate their private lives as thoroughly. Nor is it just schoolgirls and students whose usage is criticized: Fair (1996: 145–146) notes criticism of mothers failing to correct their sons who imitate their
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own (feminine) language. This raises another question: if fathers start to spend a lot more time looking after their children, will little girls end up speaking like their fathers? This idea of children modelling their speech on that of the ‘wrong’ parent was used to comic effect in a 1995 TBS television serial drama, ‘Second Chance’, which involved two single-parent families. One consisted of a father bringing up his daughter, and the other was a mother bringing up three sons. In the first family, the daughter spoke like a boy, and in the second, the middle son spoke like a girl. Ginstrom (no date) notes that ‘[t]his language difference is used mainly as a comic engine, but it does seem to reflect the general Japanese opinion that one needs exposure to speakers of the same sex to learn proper speech patterns’. A recent annual survey on public attitudes to language carried out by the Language Section of the Agency for Cultural Affairs (part of the Ministry for Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology) included a series of questions on whether people had, as children, had their attention drawn to their language usage by family members (Bunka-cho Bunka-bu Kokugo-ka 2001: 27–32). Of the 2,192 people aged over 16 who responded to the survey, 46.3 per cent of respondents said ‘often’ or ‘sometimes’; 23 per cent said ‘occasionally’; and 26.8 per cent said ‘no’. When asked who was involved, 60.4 per cent answered ‘my mother’, over double the figure for ‘my father’ (28.4 per cent), which reflects the fact that mothers are still the main caregivers. Unfortunately, there were no questions about what kind of language usage led to comment. Comparison by geographical region shows that the Kinki region (the Kyoto–Osaka–Kobe area) had the highest level of positive responses, with 53.2 per cent answering ‘often’ or ‘sometimes’. Since Kyoto, a former capital situated in this region, is renowned for its use of honorific language, it is not surprising that people in this region should be particularly sensitive to language usage. Looking at the results for men and women, 47.2 per cent and 56.9 per cent respectively replied ‘often’ or ‘sometimes’, adding weight to the argument that people are more concerned about how girls speak than they are about boys’ speech. For both men and women, the 30–39 age group had the highest affirmative response rate, 59.1 per cent for men and 57.3 per cent for women. This is the generation born during the 1960s, precisely the period of growth of the nuclear family and rapid urbanization when major changes in the family and society were occurring. In addition to the concern over a decline in communication skills in a broad sense, there is a more specific worry about the decline in the use of honorific language. Some argue that the idea of abolishing honorific language that became popular after the war in the prevailing mood of democratization means that families no longer place as much emphasis on language discipline/training/ socialization (shitsuke) as before (Yomiuri Shinbun 1993b). Nevertheless, a survey from the late 1990s showed that 23 per cent of respondents still felt that children should use honorific language to their parents, while 15 per cent thought they should also do so to older siblings (Bunka-cho Bunka-bu Kokugo-ka 1998). However, in this context, honorific language almost certainly means simply the use of polite desu/-masu verb and adjective forms instead of the plain forms that are now usual in the in-group setting of the family. Given the trend towards more
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egalitarian relations within the family, it will be interesting to see if surveys in a decade or two show falls in these percentages. Two recent studies by Yasumi Murata and Kazuyo Murata (2000) on the language of Japanese television talk shows and advertisements aimed at young people indicate that the use of these polite forms within the family will continue to decline because of broader sociolinguistic trends. The first study compared verb forms used in talk shows from the early 1980s and 1996. It concluded that a change towards a preference for plain verb forms in programmes aimed at young people had taken place during this period, less than twenty years. Yasumi Murata sees this as a trend towards positive politeness (camaraderie) away from the old norm of negative politeness (fear of offending or upsetting the listener) (Murata Y. 2000: 81). Again, this fits the general trend towards more egalitarian, friendly relationships between the family. The second study showed that ‘[y]outh-oriented commercials prefer a friendly and informal speech style that makes the viewers feel as if they were the character’s friends’, whereas ‘[a]dult-oriented commercials [. . .] prefer a formal speech style by following honorific rules to show distance towards viewers’. The researcher concludes that these are uchi (in-group) and soto (out-group) modes of communication respectively (Murata K. 2000: 86). The viewing children are being encouraged to identify with the characters in the advertisements, whereas the adults are treated with formality and respect, as they would be as customers in a shop. Tracing the use of these linguistic patterns in future programmes might yield evidence as to whether this trend will spread to those aimed at an adult audience as the young people accustomed to such language models grow older and television companies continue to try to appeal to them.
Conclusion Changes in gender roles, family structure and relationships are all reflected in language usage both inside and outside the family. Although the principles of hierarchy and in-group/out-group relations are still essential to Japanese society, the influence of western notions of equality is undoubtedly making itself felt in language usage as in other aspects of society, and the family is no exception. The pressures of rapid social, cultural, economic and technological change are also evident in the increase in problems of communication, when old patterns and habits no longer meet current needs. How families will adjust to meeting these needs is a fruitful area for future research.
Acknowledgements I am indebted to the Japan Foundation Endowment Committee for its research grant (number 195) for a visit to Japan in January 2002 to carry out interviews and gather materials which have contributed to this chapter. Researchers at NHK, the National Institute for Japanese Language, teachers at a number of schools in Hiroshima and various friends gave generously of their time and provided many
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of these materials. My thanks also to the other participants at the conference on the Japanese family at the Nissan Institute, Oxford in November 2002 for their valuable insights and comments on my original paper.
Notes 1 For more detailed descriptions and up-to-date analyses of honorific language, see Niyekawa (1991), Kabaya et al. (1998), Kikuchi (1994) and Wetzel (2004). 2 Women and men are considered equal under the 1947 constitution. 3 This practice is not unknown elsewhere: I remember my own (English) grandfather calling my grandmother ‘Mam’. One of my brothers also habitually addresses me as ‘Auntie Tessa’, partly out of habit from talking to his children, but largely because he knows it annoys me. 4 I am indebted to Ayami Nakatani for allowing me to include this anecdote. 5 Correspondent BBC2, 20 October 2002. 6 See Carroll (2001): 104–110 for more on changes in male and female language.
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—— (2000) ‘Language change in Japanese society’, in Politeness Research Group (JACET SIG) (2000): Gendai Wakamono Kotoba no Choryu: Kyori o okanai wakamono-tachi. The Positive Politeness Trend in Recent Japanese, August. Tokai Women’s College, pp. 59–69. Innes, J. (2003) ‘ “Daily Grunt” is Fault of Parents’, Scotsman, 9 January. Iwao, S. (1993) The Japanese Woman: Traditional Image and Changing Reality, New York: The Free Press. Japan Institute of Workers’ Evolution (2003) The Situation of Women in Japan, Online. Available http://www.jiwe.or.jp/english/situation/working.html (Accessed January 2005). Jolivet, M. (1997) Japan: The Childless Society? The Crisis of Motherhood, London and New York: Routledge. Jorden, E. H. (1983a) ‘Feminine language’, in Kodansha Encyclopedia of Japan, Vol. 2, Tokyo: Kodansha, pp. 250–251. —— (1983b) ‘Masculine language’, in Kodansha Encyclopedia of Japan, Vol. 5, Tokyo: Kodansha, pp. 124–125. Kabaya, H., Kawaguchi Y. and Sakamoto M. (1998) Keigo Hyogen (Honorific Language Expressions), Tokyo: Taishukan Shoten. Kakuchi, S. (2003) ‘Japanese Fight to Retain their Family Names’, Women’s news, 1 July, Online. Available http://www.womensenews.org/article.cfm?aid⫽1173 (Accessed 19 April 2005). Kikuchi, Y. (1994) Keigo (Honorific Language), Tokyo: Kadokawa Shoten. Kinsella, S. (1999) ‘High school girl subculture and the “loss of subjectivity” in contemporary Japan’, Seminar at Scottish Centre for Japanese Studies, University of Stirling, 27 November. —— (2000) Re-Orientalising Fashion, Richmond, VA: Curzon Press and University of Hawaii Press. Lebra, Takie Sugiyama (1984), Japanese Women: Constraint and Fulfillment, Honolulu, HI: University of Hawaii Press. McKie, R. (2003) ‘Lost for words?’, Observer, 12 January. Mangajin (1992) ‘Basic Japanese, Lesson 18 “Informal Politeness” ’, 18 (June): 22–25. Maynard, S. K. (1997) Japanese Communication: Language and Thought in Context, Honolulu, HI: University of Hawaii Press. Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communication (2005) Labour Force Survey, Online. Available http://www.stat.go.jp/data/roudou/2004n/ft/zuhyou/200100.xls (Accessed 14 April 2005). Murata, K. (2000) ‘Generation differences in language use as reflected in television commercials’, in Politeness Research Group (JACET SIG) Gendai Wakamono Kotoba no Choryu: Kyori o okanai wakamono-tachi. The Positive Politeness Trend in Recent Japanese. August. Tokai Women’s College, pp. 85–89. Murata, Y. (2000) ‘Changes in usage of verb forms: a comparison of early ’80s and 1996 talk shows’ in Politeness Research Group (JACET SIG) Gendai Wakamono Kotoba no Choryu: Kyori o okanai wakamono-tachi. The Positive Politeness Trend in Recent Japanese. August. Tokai Women’s College, pp. 79–84. Nagura, T. (1992) ‘The use of address terms between Japanese spouses’, JapaneseLanguage Education around the Globe, Vol. 2, March, pp. 45–63. National Institute of Population and Social Security Research (2003) Population Statistics of Japan 2003, Online. Available http://www.ipss.go.jp/index-e.html (Accessed 19 April 2005). NHK Hoso Bunka Kenkyujo (NHK Broadcasting Culture Research Institute) (1993) Gendaijin no Gengo Kankyo Chosa II: dai-5-kai (1991.2)–dai-6-kai (1991.11) (Surveys
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on language environment of people today II: 5–6 (February–November 1991)). March, Tokyo: NHK Hoso Bunka Kenkyujo. Niyekawa, A. (1991) Minimum Essential Politeness: A Guide to the Japanese Honorific Language, Tokyo: Kodansha International. Ochiai, E. (1997) The Japanese Family System in Transition: A Sociological Analysis of Family Change in Postwar Japan, Tokyo: LTCB International Library Foundation. Passin, H. (1980) Japanese and the Japanese Language and Culture, Tokyo: Kinseido. Seltman, R. L (1991) ‘Japanese Body Language: Non-verbal communication in the classroom’ originally submitted to School for International Training, Brattleboro, Vermont, Online. Available http://love-e.com/RLSarticlesfolder/JBL1.html (Accessed August 2003). Shiokura Yutaka (2000) Hikikomori, Tokyo: Village Centre Shuppankyoku. Smith, J. S. (1992) ‘Women in Charge: Politeness and Directives in the Speech of Japanese Women’, Language in Society, 21: 59–82. Statistics Bureau, MPHPT, Japan (no date) Statistical Handbook of Japan, Online. Available http://www.stat.go.jp/english/data/handbook/c02cont.htm#cha2_4 (Accessed 19 April 2005). Statler, O. et al. (1984) All-Japan: The Catalogue of Everything Japanese, Bromley, Kent: Columbus Books. Sugito S. (2002) School violence, bullying, long-term absence and some other statistics on education in Japan, Online. Available http://www.aba.ne.jp/~sugita/56e.htm (Accessed 19 August 2003). Takahashi, H. and Voss, J. (2000) ‘Parasite Singles – a Uniquely Japanese Phenomenon?’ in Japan Economic Institute Report No 31, 11 August. Online. Available http://www.jei.org/Archive/JEIR00/0031f.html (Accessed 19 August 2003). Tonippo (2004) Mata tonoita fufu bessei seido, 29 March 2004. Online. Available http://www.toonippo.co.jp/shasetsu/sha2004/sha20040329.html (Accessed 19 April 2005). Tosi, A. (2001) Language and Society in a Changing Italy, Clevedon, Somerset: Multilingual Matters Ltd. Trends in Japan, Japan Information Network, Japan Echo (1998) Tying the knot: the changing face of marriage in Japan, 28 July. Online. Available http://webjapan.org/trends98/honbun/ntj980729.html (Accessed 19 April 2005). —— (2003) What is the ideal marriage? Online survey, 30 April. Online. Available http://web-japan.org/trends/lifestyle/lif030430.html (Accessed 19 April 2005). UNESCAP (UN Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific) (no date) Table 6. Percentage of single-person households for selected ESCAP countries and areas: 1970s, 1980s, 1990s. Online. Available http://www.unescap.org/esid/psis/ publications/theme1998/poptab06.htm (Accessed 19 April 2005). Wetzel, P. (2004) Keigo in Modern Japan: Polite Language from Meiji to the Present, Honolulu, HI: Hawai’i University Press. White, M. (1994) The Material Child: Coming of Age in Japan and America, Berkeley and Los Angeles, CA: University of California Press. Yamada, M. (2000) ‘The Growing Crop of Spoiled Singles’, Japan Echo, 27 (3): 49–53. Yomiuri Shinbun (1993a) ‘Kodomo ni “hanashikotoba” kyoiku’ (‘Spoken language’ education for children), 23 June: 16. —— (1993b) ‘Jidai to tomo ni kawaru keigo’ (Honorific language changing with the times), 15 April: 18. Yoshida, M. (2004) ‘Parents of Lonely Hearts Join Own Group’, Japan Times, 28 October. Online. Available http://www.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/getarticle.pl5?nn20041028f2.htm (Accessed 19 April 2005).
Part IV
Shifts in the boundaries of the family
8
Mother-rearing The social world of mothers in a Japanese suburb Ayumi Sasagawa
Introduction Child rearing is often considered to be a socially isolating activity in Japan. In particular, in dormitory towns or suburbs where many residents live in apartment housing, most children are raised by their parents in nuclear families. Consequently, some young mothers feel a strong sense of loneliness and anxiety over raising children without any ties or contacts with the outside world (Jolivet 1997).1 In reality, however, mothers are not simply tied down to mothering duties at home. Rather, they like to, and are encouraged to, go out and join in activities outside the home. Many mothers are involved in a variety of group activities in the local area called the ‘community’. In a broad sense, the ‘community’ refers to residential networks in one municipal area, but mothers often understand it in the narrower sense of social relationships established mainly through their association with other mothers in a local setting. In the community, mothers are connected with one another through various activities: for example, their children’s school and extracurricular activities, and a variety of classes organized by the local administration. This chapter examines how motherhood and gender roles at home are shaped by such community activities. Based on my fieldwork conducted in a suburban city, I argue that community activities play an important role in shaping young mothers into ‘good’ and ‘proper’ mothers through a variety of maternal tasks provided by local governments and schools. I will illustrate how community activities help create compliant mothers.
Research methodology To investigate mothers’ involvement in community activities, I carried out field research in Ichioka City2 located near Metropolitan Tokyo from 1998 to 2000. I joined three community groups, one self-organized mother–child group3 and two study groups organized by the local government4, of which most members were mothers, in order to access and expand my local network of mothers. Moreover, I collected materials regarding local preschools and primary schools
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and, through the network I established, written information normally available only to parents of the children. I also observed mother–toddler groups, PTA (Parents and Teachers Association) activities at a local primary school, the school Sports Day, and daily interactions at a private day-care centre.
The effect of changing Japanese families on child rearing Significant demographic changes of the post-war period have altered Japanese families in various ways (See Introduction to this volume). Accompanied by the drastic decrease in the farming population and growing urbanization, large-scale construction of apartment complexes by the Japan Public Housing Corporation began in suburban areas in the middle of the 1950s. Young people migrated from rural to urban areas to start married lives in small apartment housing. This trend changed the form of family and the roles of its members. In a rural household, a young woman traditionally married into her husband’s family, living with her in-laws, and she was expected to work hard not only at home but also in the farm. A mother was not solely responsible for raising children; grandparents, older children and nursemaids also shared the task while parents of the children were busy with productive work. In newly urbanized areas, however, the nuclear family became the norm in which the father is an employed white-collar worker (salaried man) and the mother is a full-time housewife.5 A husband’s role and a wife’s role became ‘parallel and complementary’: a husband works outside the home, making money for the family and spending little time at home, while a wife works inside the home, serving the needs of the husband and children (Vogel 1978). This division of labour in the household exempts the father from the obligation of taking care of his children, leaving almost all responsibility for the children’s upbringing to the mother.6 Urbanization separated women from kinship networks, and the growth of the nuclear family isolated mothers in tiny nuclear households (Ueno 1987). In the early 1970s, infanticide committed by mothers was reported by the mass media, and the public criticized some young mothers for lacking a ‘maternal instinct’ which, many believed, was biologically endowed.7 Actually, judicial statistical data shows no remarkable change in the number of infanticide deaths in the 1970s (Matsumura 1985).8 However, successive reports made infanticide a target of public concern, with both the media and researchers questioning the causes. At that time, according to Arichi (1986), some scholars claimed that the growth of the nuclear family was the main cause of growing infanticide; in nuclear families where mothers felt isolated and fathers did not share childcare tasks, infanticide could result in the worst scenarios. Arichi (1993) also argues that women raised in a nuclear family do not know how to take care of their children. Due to a smaller number of siblings within families, there are fewer opportunities to see how younger brothers and sisters are raised. In the nuclear family, traditional mothering is hardly passed on from the previous generation to the next. Mothers in urban areas, therefore, turn to a third party for assistance in lieu of a kinship network.
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The ‘good’ mother in the Japanese context Motherhood in Japan symbolizes devotion to children and self-sacrifice. Ohinata (1995: 205) affirms this by stating that ‘people in Japan stress the image of a mother who is devoted to her children, always shows them affection, and is willing to sacrifice her own plans and desires on their behalf ’. According to Yamamura (1971) who analysed the concept of the Japanese mother represented in the media in the 1960s, Japanese society shared the notion that a mother’s purpose in life is her child, and due to her strong sense of devotion, the emotional bond of mother and child is stronger than that of father and child. Moreover, a mother endures various hardships, giving her child ultimate support and comfort, and in turn the child makes efforts to achieve success in order to repay his/her mother’s self-sacrifice (ibid.).9 In her book entitled Japan: The Childless Society?, Jolivet (1997) depicts how ‘authorities,’ or paediatricians and authors of child rearing manual books, emphasize the importance of a mother’s full-time devotion and strong attachment to her child. These authorities criticize bottle feeding, prepared baby meals, disposable nappies, and any new products that make a mother’s tasks easier. In other words, they seem to believe that a mother should spend as much time as possible in taking care of her child, without depending on products available at supermarkets or shops. A mother will discover maternal love and responsibility, they claim, by putting in a lot of time and labour to work for the benefit of her child. Moreover, they warn mothers that the use of new technology and equipment could cause crucial defects associated with the mental and physical development of their children. Their main point is that a woman cannot be a ‘good’ mother unless she sacrifices herself for her child, and that she will gain maternal pleasure only by going through hardships associated with child rearing. In sum, these authorities have no doubt that young mothers should behave like mothers in the past.10
The development of community support for raising children The strong emphasis on a mother’s responsibility and self-sacrifice often places young mothers in a dilemma. On the one hand, they want to enjoy motherhood, but on the other, they find mothering without help painful and stressful. Jolivet (1997: 1) argues that young women feel increasingly reluctant to be mothers because they are not attracted by motherhood. Instead, ‘they find motherhood tedious, exhausting and exasperating’. As a result, she suggests, Japanese society today is suffering from a sharp decline in the birth rate. However, the social climate has been changing to give greater support to mothers in isolation: the central and local governments have started to support mothers in raising children. According to Arichi (1993), local administrations organized classes for pregnant women for the first time in the 1980s. These were subsidized by the central government and provided instructions on childbirth,
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breast feeding, and child rearing. Especially since the early 1990s, when the decline in the birth rate became a social issue, the central and local governments have put in a serious effort to provide child rearing support for mothers. In 1994, the central government formed the ‘Basic Direction for Future Child Rearing Support Measures (Angel Plan)’, aiming ‘to allow the society as a whole to endeavour to support child rearing in a comprehensive and systematic manner’(MHW 2000). Based on this plan, the central government started to promote various child rearing support services that include extending the opening hours of day nurseries for working mothers, temporary nursery care services for full-time mothers, and the establishment of facilities named ‘Regional Child Rearing Support Centres’ (Chiiki kosodate shien senta). Under the direction of the central government, local governments have been promoting various child rearing support services, aiming at the establishment of a good environment for children to grow up with the support of the local community as a whole.11
Socialization of mothers through activities in the community: the case of Ichioka City The expansion of public child rearing support services in the community is also aimed at releasing mothers from a sense of alienation and anxiety. In order to take a closer look at the kind of activities organized, what mothers are doing in these activities and the purpose of each activity, I present the following case of mothers’ community activities in Ichioka City. Ichioka City is one of the suburban residential cities, providing human resources to Metropolitan Tokyo, that has been largely developed since the period of high economic growth of the 1960s. The population was approximately 450,000 in 2000. As a commuter suburb, a substantial part of the working population of the city goes out of the city during the daytime, leaving mothers and their young children in the community. There are several reasons why I surmised that many mothers in this city were involved in community activities. First, the rate of working mothers in Ichioka City was relatively low.12 Most community activities associated with mothers were held during the daytime on weekdays. Therefore, working mothers, especially those who were employed on a full-time basis, probably found it difficult to attend such activities. Second, a majority of mothers with young children lived in apartment buildings far from their parents or parents-in-law. Thus, these mothers could not expect grandmothers, grandfathers or relatives to attend to the children while they were out, which is still a common practice in rural areas (MHW 1998:134). Initiation into community activities A mother’s involvement in mothering community activities began with her participation in local governmental services. The health education section of the Ichioka local government organized a variety of classes for pregnant women and
The social world of mothers 133 mothers, aimed at promoting the healthy growth of children.13 For example, classes for pregnant women taught them how to make baby food and provided lectures on basic knowledge about childbirth and child rearing for new mothers. After childbirth, the health education section provided other classes for mothers to teach them how to brush the teeth of a baby, and how to develop the language skills of children under the age of two. Moreover, mothers were encouraged to visit the public health centre to have their children’s immunizations and check-ups done. These classes were aimed not only at providing guidance for new mothers, but also to promote friendship between them. The public health centre offered an activity named ‘Gathering of Mothers and Children’(Haha to ko no tsudoi) once a month, aimed at giving mothers with toddlers opportunities to meet their peers and receive advice from nurses. In addition to the public health centre, the local administration also provided a variety of gatherings and support services in order to prevent mothers from feeling isolated. Some mothers also established peer groups with other mothers they met at such activities. Encouragement of mother–child bonding Many mothering activities were organized around the notion that a mother’s physical presence was very important for the development of her child. Almost all child-related activities in the community required mothers to accompany their children. In the suburbs, there were many playgroup activities in the community for mothers and their children who had not reached preschool age. Some of these were organized by the local government, and others were private playgroups. These group activities were usually held in ‘public citizens’ halls’ (kominkan) or in other public facilities for one or two hours, once a week. In these playgroup activities, a mother was encouraged to pair up with one of her children and to pay full attention to him/her. One private playgroup I observed was run by a couple in their thirties or forties who were referred to as the ‘teacher’ (sensei). There were four mothers supporting them who were called ‘officers’ ( yakuin). They were in charge of administrative tasks, such as planning the annual schedule of monthly events, excursions, and the Christmas party and booking the hall of the gymnasium where activities were held. Membership of the group (mothers and children) totalled around fifty in number. The teachers played with the children in the hall where toys such as balloons, and mattresses were provided. Mothers seemed to feel that it was important for boys to play with the male teacher, the only adult man in the group. However, teachers encouraged mother–child bonding, and mothers were expected to be playing with their children, rather than just letting children play with each other. If a mother brought more than one child, female helpers (one of the officers) would take charge of other children, as they considered it hard for one mother to pay full attention to more than one child. Encouragement of the monopolizing of a child by his/her mother was also observed in a playgroup organized by the local government. In this activity, three
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young female instructors who were qualified as preschool teachers played the leading role.14 In the class I observed, about 30 pairs of mothers and their threeyear-old children were registered. This group had a rule that a mother was allowed to bring only one child and she was required to leave other children, if any, at home or in another person’s care. The instructors arranged various kinds of games and played in each of the hour-long events. For example, during the first thirty minutes of the activity, the participants were instructed to sit in a double circle, the inside line consisting of the children and the outside one consisting of the mothers. Each mother and her child sat close together. The instructors stood at the centre of the circle, leading some games for mothers and children to play together. During the second thirty minutes, the mother–child pairs were divided into small groups. Then the instructors handed out pieces of paper to each child, and explained how to make a paper plane. After they were divided into groups, the mothers talked only to their own children: few conversations were observed even among mothers belonging to the same group. At the end of the activity, they told the mothers to continue the game arranged for small groups at home. It seemed that this activity provided opportunities for mothers to learn how to play with their children at home. According to the public newsletter of Ichioka City, which was circulated to each house/flat in the city once a week, this mother– toddler activity was aimed at the enrichment of ‘sensitivity’ (joso) and healthy growth of children through playing. The encouragement of contact or ‘affectionate touch’ ( fureai) between a mother and her child was the main purpose of the activity, so there was a strong stress on one-to-one contact. Assignments for mothers At the activity organized by the local administration described in the previous section, mothers were given specific duties. The hour-long event began with a check on attendance. At the entrance to the room, mothers picked up a name card for their children, and pinned it to their children’s chest. Each child was given a sticker each time as proof of attendance and a small notebook in which to put his/her collection of stickers. The stickers were designed to look cute in order to attract the children, and children with many stickers on their notebooks were rewarded with a special stamp for regular attendance. This encouragement of regular attendance for the children helped produce in their mothers a sense of responsibility for bringing them to the event every week. Each child was also given another notebook used by his/her mother and the instructors. The mothers were asked to write some comments in the notebooks about their child’s growth and submit them to instructors in the last week of every month, and the instructors gave them back with some suggestions to mothers the following week. In addition, at the beginning of the year, mothers were required to make a small bag to hold the two notebooks. The shape and size of the bag were specified by the instructors. The activity was completely under the control of the instructors. Mothers followed the procedure of the event and accomplished the tasks as ordered. I never saw the
The social world of mothers 135 instructors asking the mothers to express their opinions or views on the activity. Although it was unclear whether the young instructors were consciously trying to educate the mothers, in the end, they were doing so. Actually, the instructors did not have full autonomy in managing the event, but appeared to faithfully follow the instructions provided by the local government. The local government was the agent which attempted to educate mothers through young instructors. The instructors were not high-pressure supervisors of mothers, but they delivered a message from the government to mothers about proper motherly attitudes. Mother-made goods: maternal duties defined by preschool A child’s entrance into preschool was the next important stage when a mother was expected to learn to act as a good mother. In preschools, the mothers’ commitment to school activities was indispensable. There were two types of institutions in Japan for children before entering compulsory education, which started when children reached the age of six: the kindergarten ( yochien) and the day nursery (hoikuen). The kindergarten is an establishment whose main aim is to educate children of preschool age in order to enable them to behave properly in a group of people outside the home (Hendry 1986). The day nursery shares this purpose, but it has the additional role of supporting the care of children whose parents, especially mothers, cannot fully attend to them because of full-time work or illness. Preschools, especially the kindergarten, seem to use a variety of measures to impress upon mothers the importance of paying full attention to their children. Here I focus on mothers’ duties in preparing for preschool entry in order to illustrate the way in which preschools instruct mothers on how to educate their children at home. I collected handouts that some of the preschools in Ichioka City gave to mothers of the new children before entry. For instance, they provided school information on the structure of daily activity and a list of habits that the children should acquire before entry, such as washing hands before a meal and changing clothes by themselves. Some of the kindergartens gave the mothers details of the way in which they should train their preschool children at home. Kindergartens stressed the importance of a good partnership between the kindergarten and the mothers in socializing the children, and they defined the kindergarten as ‘an extension of home’ stating that ‘the primary teacher of a preschool child is his/her mother’. Kindergartens’ instructions in the handouts were also detailed, particularly regarding children’s belongings that should be brought to the kindergarten everyday and left there. The mothers were required to make a school bag and various other bags for their children to put things in, such as a lunchbox, picture books, and a pair of indoor shoes. There were variations between kindergartens as to what kind of things mothers had to prepare before enrolment, but it seemed that there was a broad consensus that kindergartens demanded that mothers at least have the skill to handle a sewing machine. The shape and size of these handmade goods were illustrated in detail with simple drawings on the paper circulated to the mothers.15 Except for the school bag, mothers were allowed to purchase items of
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the appropriate sizes. In reality, however, it seemed difficult to find bags of the proper sizes at shops. Another important duty for mothers was to write the child’s name in the right place on each item. One kindergarten, for instance, used two sheets of paper to illustrate how to put a child’s name on each of the items, including a pair of scissors, castanets, a mug, towels, clothes, a felt pen and its cap. Public day nurseries of Ichioka City also demanded mother-made goods. In the afternoon, the day nursery set a naptime for a few hours for the children. In the handout, mothers were instructed to provide duvet covers for a set of futon (Japanese mattress and quilt), a pair of pyjamas, extra nappies or underwear, facecloths, and so on. Sizes of the covers were fixed, and mothers had to make them. Mothers were also required to prepare various bags to put their belongings in, but the sizes of these bags were not specified.16 Mothers were clearly expected to spend considerable time at home producing such goods. Surrounded by mother-made products, children were aware of the presence of their mothers even while they were away from home. In other words, these products in some way made up for the absence of the mother. Allison (1991: 203), who analyses mothers’ tasks assigned by a kindergarten in Japan, suggests that ‘women are what they are through the products they produce’. The day nursery expected less of mothers of the children in providing handmade goods in comparison with the kindergartens on entry. However, the separation of mother and child was never praised in the day nursery. Many day nurseries asked mothers not to go shopping before collecting their children, because nursery teachers assumed that good mothers would hurry to collect their children, feeling guilty about the separation. Completing these tasks, mothers internalized the idea that a mother’s full-time devotion was indispensable in bringing up their children in an appropriate way. Participation in school activities as mothers’ duty When children enter primary school, participation in the PTA (Parents and Teachers Association) becomes a duty for all mothers. Many mothers, however, are not too keen to become PTA officers. In primary schools, PTA officers are generally chosen at the first parents’ meeting held by each class in April, but a certain number of mothers are deliberately absent to avoid being selected. The mothers who are selected tend to feel this is unfair.17 Even though it is hard for mothers in full-time work to attend meetings held in the daytime on a weekday, they are still criticized for their absence. All mothers are obliged to become PTA officers at least once before their children graduate from the school. The primary school I observed believed that all the mothers should make a commitment to PTA activities, expecting them to support school activities as a motherly duty. PTA officers were divided into several groups, and each group was assigned different tasks, for example, making arrangements for a school event such as Sports Day, standing at the corner of a crossing with a yellow flag in their hands in the morning for the students to go to school safely or sorting out recyclable articles that the students bring from home, such as newspapers and
The social world of mothers 137 empty bottles, at the collection site in the school grounds, and cleaning up there. This primary school attempted to involve as many mothers as possible in PTA activities, by creating a variety of tasks, to teach them that they cannot leave the care of children to the school. PTA officers had to go to school very often, in order to attend meetings or accomplish assigned tasks. Motherhood should be carried out not only inside the home, but also within the society to which her child belongs. However, to some degree, a primary school also defines the maternal role to be at home. Children very often brought letters home from the school. These letters provided mothers with information on school events, parents’ meetings, PTA activities, and so on. Moreover, the school gave mothers instructions through these letters about things their children should and should not do after school and during the school holidays. For example, children were not allowed to play in the school ground after school, or go to shopping centres, the cinema or arcades unless their parents accompanied them. During the summer holiday, children should help their mothers with housework, read at least three books, be home before five in the evening, get up and go to bed at fixed times, keep a diary and so on. And they should not eat too much, have too many cold drinks, play in rivers and follow strangers. Primary schools also assigned large amounts of homework to children during term time and in the holidays, expecting mothers to help and encourage their children to study at home. In a way, school activities are expanding; even mothers’ education for their children at home has become a part of school activities. Education for mothers at school The Ichioka local government ‘educational committee’ (kyoiku iinkai) organized a ‘Class for Home Education’ (Katei kyoiku gakkyu) to educate the mothers of primary and junior high school students. Mothers who wanted to take part in the class were registered as ‘students’ (gakkyusei). It was not compulsory for mothers to join the class, and hence the percentage of mothers attending was often quite low. The main activity of the Class for Home Education was seminars for mothers of school students. In the case of the primary school I observed, ten such seminars were organized in 1997. These were held on weekdays, and around 40 mothers took part in each seminar.18 The annual theme of study was ‘To cultivate a “pressure-free” ( yutori aru) relationship between parent and child’. Speakers at the seminars included primary school teachers and a university professor. Both the school and the mothers shared the notion that two types of education, school education by teachers and home education by mothers, were necessary to raise children of sound mind and body, and that both should work cooperatively. Power relations between the two, however, did not seem to be equal. Through these seminars the school encouraged mothers to learn how to communicate with their children at home and how to establish a good relationship with them. Mothers learned, for example, how to always maintain their composure, hide their own pressures from children and to provide them with a well-balanced diet.
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The underlying message of the Class for Home Education was that a woman should grow into being a mother just as her child grows up. Socially, childbirth in itself did not make her into a mother, but rather she needed to be educated in how to be a good mother. In other words, in order to educate her child at home properly, a mother was encouraged to learn and to develop mentally along with her child. The idea of educating both child and mother was also stressed by the headmaster of the primary school I observed. At the general meeting of the PTA organization, he expressed his desire to establish a system of education that encouraged children and adults to grow up together. Mothers’ views on their socialization process in the community What motivated mothers with young children to take part in such activities? At first glance, the majority of mothers seemed to simply accept what was imposed on them as motherly tasks. In each activity I observed, mothers followed instructors’ or teachers’ instruction without complaining. For one thing, mothers considered group activities, especially those involving playgroups for mothers with toddlers, important opportunities to learn how a mother should behave. They joined group activities hoping to gain a basic knowledge of child rearing, rather than to express what they wanted to do themselves. For young mothers in the nuclear family, mothers’ networks in the community were the main sources of information. According to Yamada (2000), the majority of young women in Tokyo support the belief that early education is necessary. Furthermore, mothers, who have great expectations for their children’s future, tend to resist leaving their children in the care of others, such as at a day nursery or with a baby sitter (ibid.). Many of the mothers I observed were also very keen on education from a very early age when planning their children’s future. They sought information about swimming or English classes for young children through mothers’ networks, and their enthusiasm spread the notion that a mother was responsible for investing in her child’s early education. As children grew older, many mothers became involved in school-related activities, obligatory in some cases, which gradually became a burden. However, to some extent, they still obeyed teachers’ orders. Their obedience might be partly explained by the assumption that their performance would be reflected in the way their children were evaluated or were treated by teachers. Kamoshita-san, a fulltime working mother of two children, told me that in a primary school, mothers did not strongly oppose the way a school manages PTA activities, because they felt that their children were almost like ‘hostages’ taken by the teachers. She managed to do the PTA officer tasks, feeling annoyed by criticism from some other officers of her absence from daytime meetings. Yabuki-san, who was a vice president of a primary school PTA, said that she had accepted to be an officer hoping that her daughter’s class teacher would give her special treatment. ‘It was just my misunderstanding’ (laugh), she said, ‘but everyone believes that a child’s grades will improve if his/her mother becomes a PTA officer’. In addition, several mothers
The social world of mothers 139 approved of participation in these activities as an opportunity to see how their children were getting along at school. Even if mothers had little interest in the tasks themselves, they became involved in school-related activities, because they believed that their performance contributed to the benefit of their children. It should be noted that not all mothers with young children took part in group activities. If a mother was not interested in group activities, or preferred staying at home, she would not bother to join any group. Although mothers were theoretically obliged to take part in PTA activities, a certain number of mothers found them troublesome and never turned up at parents’ meetings and other school activities, even if they had a phone call from a teacher asking them to attend a meeting. Besides, there were some mothers who encountered difficulty in finding a group which suited them. For several mothers, association with other mothers in group activities was rather a source of frustration. Incidentally, several mothers found a loophole in carrying out motherly tasks, especially in terms of goods to be made by mothers: they actually asked other women to produce them on their behalf. Onoda-san who joined a playgroup organized by the local government told me that her mother actually made the bags for her son. Another example was Kobayakawa-san, a full-time working mother, who gave up making the duvet covers demanded by her son’s day nursery and rushed into a shop to order the covers to be made there instead. In February and March, women with good sewing skills put personal advertisements in community papers, in time for the preschool entry in April, for making ‘mother-made’ goods for mothers who did/could not make them. There were even shops, including some websites, that were aimed at helping mothers without enough time or skill to produce ‘mother-made’ goods (Katagiri 2001). Thus, mothers adapted and coped with the situation in their own inventive ways, rather than displaying overt disagreement with school policy. Overall, the most enjoyable aspect among the mother’s community appeared to be the pursuit of new friendships. Even if a mother did not have enough time to talk to other mothers during specific activities, she had a chance to enjoy chatting and to have lunch together after that. Many mothers I talked with wanted to make new friends and to know how to get along with other mothers in community groups. There was often friction between mothers, of course, and some occasionally found mothers’ meetings and gatherings stressful. However, they sought and chose others who shared the same interests, and expanded their networks in the community, for instance, by organising a new mother–child playgroup, by participating in a hobby-oriented group or study group activity together, by having parties, or by going on outings together. Mothers’ voices In the following section, I introduce two mothers’ stories in detail in order to get closer to their ‘true feeling’ (honne), which was not evident in observations of group activities.
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Case 1: Furusawa-san (42): Furusawa-san was a mother of two children. After giving birth to a second child eight years ago, she left the workplace: I didn’t want to be a full-time housewife since I wanted to be connected to society outside the home. But, because of the double burden of employment and child rearing, I was always tired. The day nursery that my first child attended did not allow mothers to bring disposable paper nappies! (This meant that she had to wash piles of nappies every night). I was always falling asleep at my office (laugh). When her second child was two years old, she joined a mother and toddler group organized by a former kindergarten teacher in her neighbourhood. Mothers and their infants met to chat, cook and play games for a few hours once a week. She found this group activity psychologically very helpful: I got frustrated with being merely a full-time housewife in spite of my Master’s degree. My husband was too busy with his work to support me. I was dissatisfied with staying at home. But the teacher of the group listened to me and taught me how to communicate with my children. She was very experienced in child rearing. She told me that a child wants to be with his/her mother until the age of three, so I realized that I should stay with them for a few years. I got much relief from my suffering. In comparison with this experience, Furusawa-san found kindergarten and primary school PTA activities much less beneficial: PTA mothers vary in age, educational background, way of thinking and so on. If you find other mothers who are like-minded, you tend to group together. Mothers who have graduated from junior colleges for example, group together. They are showy and love big-name brand goods. I am not interested in grouping with such mothers, and don’t find PTA activities exciting at all. There is no room for a mother to be creative in PTA activities. Having complained about PTA activities, however, Furusawa-san agreed to be an officer because ‘all mothers in my children’s school are supposed to do that’.
Case 2: Satani-san (40): Satani-san left the workplace immediately after her son was born seven years ago. Her parents believed that a mother should stay at home, and her husband
The social world of mothers 141 agreed with them. Satani-san also agreed, but soon found her new life very stressful: I understood why some mothers even kill their babies. I didn’t spank my child, but his cry got on my nerves. I wondered why I was the only one at home taking care of my son. It was boring and endless work. One year later, she started to work as a part-time pharmacist, and formed a small group of mothers in her neighbourhood. By going out regularly, she felt much more relaxed: I enjoyed the group activity because we shared the same troubles and worries and talked to each other about them. It was good for me. We all got along well and I still keep in touch with some of the mothers. In her son’s kindergarten and primary school, she was several times appointed as an officer playing a leading role in PTA activity. She told me of the many problems among PTA mothers: I was surprised that some mothers turned down the offer of becoming an officer simply because they have an outside job. I have a job too. Full-time working mothers can use paid holidays to attend PTA activities, and we even often hold the meetings on Saturdays. I think the question is if she has a mind to be involved or not. On the other hand, some full-time housewives’ horizons are quite narrow. I don’t think they are really interested in the activities at all. They neither complain about them or enjoy them, they simply treat the tasks as a duty. When I interviewed her, Satani-san had also joined a study group organized by the local government. She found many mothers who shared her interests there, and was happy to have friends who listened to her complaints about PTA and school activities. A Self-organized mother–child group Not all of the community activities associated with mothers were organized in order to instruct them. Some mothering community activities claimed to aim at the interests of mothers as well as those of their children. One of the groups in Ichioka City named the ‘Parent–Child Theatre’ (Oyako gekijo) was organized by mothers without any instructors. This was a local branch of a nation-wide private association, the ‘Children’s Theatre’ (Kodomo gekijo). The group was much larger than any other group I observed, and the number of members grew roughly from 460 to 550 during my fieldwork. The main purpose of this group activity was to produce an ideal environment for raising children in a local community, in order to enrich mothers’ and children’s lives. The organizers assumed that trends in
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Japanese society were detrimental to children, because society had become excessively economically oriented, and such a material world had in turn badly affected children’s behaviour and mental development. The ultimate purpose of this group was to establish a social environment which cultivated children’s ability to live ‘a human life’ (ningen rashii ikikata), in other words, a rounded life or a full life. Mothers involved in this activity repeatedly said that mothers should enjoy the activities before thinking of the interests of their children. They considered their activities as different from school-related ones, such as the PTA or the Class for Home Education, because they did not think of their activities as a motherly obligation or duty. Furthermore, they stressed neither one-to-one contact between mother and her child nor a motherly attitude. The Parent–Child Theatre arranged many opportunities for the children to see plays, music concerts, puppet shows and so on. The mothers considered that cultural activities, such as seeing a play, enriched children’s sensibilities and had a very good effect on their mental growth. They also organized music concerts and plays for an adult audience, the mothers. Moreover, they arranged a variety of events throughout the year such as a summer camp, an annual festival and a Christmas party, in order to encourage the mothers and children to communicate with people outside their family. What the mothers of the ‘Parent–Child Theatre’ wanted to achieve was to bring up children in a neighbours’ network which they believed used to be common practice in Japanese society before the economically oriented society was established.19 They were trying to shape the community, rather than be educated by the community.
Conclusion The sharp decline in the birth rate in the 1990s greatly contributed to alerting the central government to the need for social support for child rearing. There was a growing concern that mothering in isolation might have a harmful effect on the development of children who would serve the nation in the future. Through activities in the community, the government began to provide opportunities for mothers to learn how they should raise their children, for the sake of the next generation. Child rearing is thus gradually shifting from being a family-based to a community-based activity. As the community has become involved in child rearing, mothers’ duties have been standardized and systematized. Firstly, new mothers learn how to take care of their babies at a public health centre. Then, they are taught how to play with their toddlers in a playgroup, learning that one-to-one physical contact is very important for toddlers’ development. In preschool, which is the first social group children join where they are independent from their mothers, mothers produce a variety of handmade goods as if to compensate for their absence. Moreover, in preschool and primary school, mothers are encouraged to take part in school activities to make their presence and efforts made for their children felt. In addition, local government and schools provide mothers with guidance in the way they should train their children at home at each level of development. Local government and
The social world of mothers 143 schools do not force mothers to sacrifice themselves but rather, they try to teach mothers that they need to be instructed on how to behave as mothers: a mother should be ‘professional’. In other words, motherhood has become institutionalized with duties defined by the community. I found that many mothering activities helped mothers in isolation. However, they never emancipated mothers from the belief that they should be the primary agent of childcare and that child rearing should be a source of their sense of fulfilment. Mothers are no longer expected to endure hardships in raising their children as they used to be, but are now encouraged to enjoy a ‘happy’ childbound life by making friends and taking part in peer groups. Yazawa et al. (2003) point out that public and private child rearing supports in the community tend to teach mothers only to become standardized mothers. They lack a ‘gendersensitive’, or feminist point of view which highly values diversity in motherhood and womanhood. In a sense, mothers are conditioned to be obedient, but they do not always consider this a negative aspect. While they often experience motherly duties assigned to them as burdens, they also find them helpful. Mothers can gain information on the ‘standard’ way of raising children, and, for instance, they no longer need to worry about how big their children’s preschool bag should be. It should be noted that mothers themselves also have a strong desire to be ‘good’ mothers and to socialize their children in the best way possible. This makes them somewhat passive with no strong feeling of resistance to tasks and duties assigned, even if they find them boring and troublesome. It is also important to note that mothering activities in the community can provide mothers with an opportunity to prepare for developing their own interests in a group setting. Like the Parent–Child Theatre, there are other groups that do not emphasize education for mothers, but take a different approach in organizing mother–child group activities. As their network develops, in order to satisfy their interests and to seek stimulation, some mothers become engaged in group activities that are not related to mothering at all. Many fathers were seemingly not so interested in mothers’ community activities. There has been a change in the social climate in favour of fatherhood that involves child rearing (see Nakatani, Chapter 6 this volume). Some fathers today are trying positively to make a commitment to raising children at home and in the community, and the government encourages fathers to take part in child rearing. However, many claim not to have time to join group activities on weekdays and to feel resistance to joining mothers’ groups. Mothers also assume that the primary role of the father is to support his family financially. For a mother suffering from a problem related to child rearing, her networks with other mothers in the community may often be more helpful than an absent father.
Acknowledgement I would like to express my gratitude to Tom Gill, Ruth Martin and Louella Matsunaga for their comments and suggestions on this chapter.
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Notes 1 For instance, the Asahi Newspaper featured an article entitled ‘Full-time housewives suffering from depression’ (Sengyo shufu no yuutsu) in November 1998, and sought the opinions of readers. In letters subsequently received, housewives expressed discontent with their husbands’ indifference towards child rearing in isolation, the devaluation of housework and a sense of alienation from the outside world. 2 The name of the city is a pseudonym, as are those of mothers used in this chapter. 3 According to an informant, there were at least eight self-organized mother–child groups in Ichioka City in 1999. Each group had around 10–30 mother–child pairs, and they gathered at public citizens’ halls (kominkan) or other public facilities three or four times a month. The informant and her peer mothers set up a network linking these groups, and named it the ‘Child Rearing Circles’ Network’ (Ikuji sakuru nettowaku). The aim of this network was to promote communication between the groups and to lobby for more public support for child rearing activities and the number of groups involved increased to 32 in 2003. 4 Local governments organized a variety of learning courses in such areas as sports, hobbies, cultural activities and mother–child group activities, for citizens. There were fifteen public citizens’ halls and a public women’s centre ( josei senta) in Ichioka City when I conducted my research, and for instance, in the autumn term in 1998, each facility organized 5–13 learning courses. The study groups I joined were part of these learning courses. 5 In the 1960 Population Census, 70.5 per cent of the wives of salaried men were regarded as full-time housewives (EPA 1997: 298). 6 In families with children under the age of three in 2001, a father spent only 33 minutes per day for taking care of his children while a mother spent four hours (NWEC 2003: 68). 7 The main reason why infanticide caused a great sensation in 1972–1973 was the instance of bodies of babies found in unprecedented places, such as the case of a baby discovered at a railway station in a coin-operated left-luggage locker. 8 The number of women who were arrested for infanticide was 110 in 1945, 153 in 1955, 164 in 1965, 139 in 1975 and 109 in 1982 (Matsumura 1985: 259; original data from National Police Agency). 9 Actually, the ‘traditional’ figure of the Japanese mother was a product of the modern period. Since the Meiji Restoration, state policies have aimed at making use of women in the most effective way, by creating new ideal conceptions of womanhood as motherhood in the making of a strong nation: a mother should educate her children who would serve the nation and work hard in productive work. She should also manage household economy in order to minimize expenses and to maximize savings (Koyama 1991, Miyake 1991, Nolte and Hastings 1991). The ‘traditional’ maternal figure was politically established and praised because of her selflessness and self-sacrifice. 10 Actually, present day mothers are more child centred than their predecessors. Takeda (1981) suggested that housewives of her mother’s generation spent much more time doing housework than taking care of children. Reminiscing about her childhood in the late 1940s, she found that her mother had spent little time taking care of her infants, leaving them in the care of older children. The innovation and spread of electrical home appliances made a great contribution to the reduction in the housewives’ housework burden, and provided much more time for child rearing. 11 According to the Asahi Newspaper (21 April 2005), a survey conducted in 2004 showed that around 60 per cent of parents with babies under the age of one to children in the third grade took part in child rearing support activities in the community in Japan on at least one occasion. 12 In a survey conducted by Ichioka City in 1998, 28.1 per cent of mothers with children up to the age of eight had paid jobs, while in Japan 39.0 per cent of mothers with children up to the age of six were in the labour force in 1999 (MOL 2000: 34).
The social world of mothers 145 13 A survey conducted by Ichioka City in 1998 reported that 66.4 per cent of mothers with children up to the age of eight participated in activities held in the public health centre. 14 This activity was one of the playgroup activities offered by the ‘House for Children’ (Kodomokan), which started in 1979, as a part of public child rearing support services. There were fourteen facilities named the House for Children in Ichioka City when I conducted my research, and various playgroup activities and events for children were held in each facility. According to a survey conducted by Ichioka City in 1998, 43.6 per cent of mothers with children up to the age of eight participated in such activities. 15 For example, one kindergarten required the children to bring a school bag (to be bigger than 25 ⫻ 32 cm) and a bag for picture books (to be bigger than 27 ⫻ 38 cm). As well as these two bags, the mothers were also required to produce a bag for a mug (20 ⫻ 18 cm), for a pair of scissors (25 ⫻ 10 cm), for a pair of indoor shoes (28 ⫻ 18 cm), for clothes for outdoor activities (30 ⫻ 25 cm), for a lunchbox (free size), and a luncheon mat (15 ⫻ 20 cm). All but the lunchbox bag should be with a strap with which to carry it or to hang the bag on a hook. 16 In public day nurseries, mothers had to provide a rucksack as a school bag, as well as bags for used clothes, pyjamas, used nappies, and indoor shoes respectively (in the case of a two-year-old child). 17 However, mothers are sometimes elected even if they do not show up. According to some mothers I interviewed, the percentage of attendance at such a meeting varies from roughly 30–80 per cent. In worst cases, when only five or six out of 40 mothers are present, a teacher will often telephone absentees after the meeting is over in order to appoint them. 18 The number of pupils at the primary school was over 1,000 in 1997, but only 77 mothers (and no fathers) were registered as ‘students’. 19 Mothers of the Children’s Theatre assumed that before the period of high economic growth in Japan which started in the early 1960s, children had always been raised in collaboration with neighbours whereby mothers helped one another in child rearing, and adults took care of all children in the neighbourhood.
References Allison, A. (1991) ‘Japanese Mothers and Obentos: The Lunch-box as Ideological State Apparatus’, Anthropological Quarterly, 64 (4): 195–208. Arichi, T. (1986) Nihon no Oyako Nihyakunen (Japanese Parents and Children in the Last Two Hundred Years), Tokyo: Shin’yosha. —— (1993) Kazoku wa Kawattaka (Has the Family Changed?), Tokyo: Yuhikaku. EPA, Economic Planning Agency. (1997) Heisei 9 nenban Kokumin Seikatsu Hakusho (White Paper on the National Lifestyle 1997), Tokyo: Printing Bureau, MOF. Hendry, J. (1986) Becoming Japanese: The World of the Pre-school Child, Manchester: Manchester University Press. Jolivet, M. (1997) Japan: Childless Society?, London: Routledge. Katagiri, K. (2001) ‘Haha ni natte yomigaeru kateika no akumu’ (After becoming a mother, the nightmare of the homemaking courses), Asahi Shinbun Weekly AERA, 18 June: 26–28. Koyama, S. (1991) Ryosai Kenbo to iu Kihan (‘Good Wife, Wise Mother’ as Social Norm), Tokyo: Keisoshobo. Matsumura, N. (1985) ‘Kozoteki ikuji funo shakai no nakade’ (Structural child-care difficulties in society), in H. Wakita (ed.) Bosei wo Tou: Rekishiteki Hensen (ge) (Inquiry into Motherhood: The Historical Transformation II), Kyoto: Jinbunshoin.
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MHW, Ministry of Health and Welfare. (1998) Heisei 10 nenban Kosei Hakusho (White Paper on Health and Welfare 1998), Tokyo: Gyosei. —— (2000) ‘Promotion of Measures to Support Childcare’, Part 2, Chapter 5, Section 2 of Annual Report on Health and Welfare: 1998–1999. Online. Available http://www1. mhlw.go.jp/english/wp_5/vol1/p2c5s2.html (Accessed 20 April 2005). Miyake, Y. (1991) ‘Doubling expectations: motherhood and women’s factory work under state management in Japan in the 1930s and 1940s’, in G. L. Bernstein (ed.) Recreating Japanese Women, 1600–1945, Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. MOL, Ministry of Labor. (2000) Heisei 11 nenban Josei Rodo Hakusho (White Paper on Women’s Work 1999), Appendix, Tokyo: 21-seiki Shokugyozaidan. Nolte, S. H. and Hastings, S. A. (1991) ‘The Meiji state’s policy toward women, 1890–1910’, in G. L. Bernstein (ed.) Recreating Japanese Women, 1600–1945, Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. NWEC, National Women’s Education Centre. (2003) Danjo Kyodo Sankaku: Tokei Deta Bukku 2003 (Gender-Equal Participation: Statistical Data Book 2003), Tokyo: Gyosei. Ohinata, M. (1995) ‘The mystique of motherhood: a key to understanding social change and family problems in Japan’, in K. Fujimura-Fanselow and A. Kameda (eds) Japanese Women: New Feminist Perspectives on the Past, Present, and Future, New York: Feminist Press. Takeda, K. (1981) Shufu kara no Jiritsu (Independence from being a Housewife), Tokyo: Chobunsha. Ueno, C. (1987) ‘The Position of Japanese Women Reconsidered’, Current Anthropology, 28 (4): 75–84. Vogel, S. (1978) ‘Professional Housewife: The Career of Urban Middle Class Japanese Women’, Japan Interpreter, 12 (1): 16–43. Yamada, M. (2000) ‘ “Yoriyoi kosodate” ni oikomareru hahaoyatachi’ (Mothers who are cornered by the idea of ‘better child rearing’), in Y. Meguro and S. Yazawa (eds) Shoshika Jidai no Jenda to Hahaoya Ishiki (Gender and Mother’s Consciousness in an Era of Fewer Children), Tokyo: Shin’yosha. Yamamura, Y. (1971) Nihonjin to Haha (The Japanese and the Mother), Tokyo: Toyokan. Yazawa, S., Kunihiro, Y., and Tendo, M. (2003) Toshi Kankyo to Kosodate (Urban Environment and Child Rearing), Tokyo: Keisoshobo.
9
Policing the Japanese family Child abuse, domestic violence and the changing role of the state Roger Goodman
From the end of January and throughout February and March 2004, the Japanese media was obsessed by what became known as the ‘Kishiwada Jido Gyakutai Jiken’ (The Kishiwada Child Abuse Incident). The facts of the case emerged through newspaper reports over a number of days; their significance though continued to be debated on the TV wide shows and weekly magazines (shukanshi) long after the mainstream media had moved on to other stories. According to reports on 26 January (YS 26 January 2004), a truck driver and his live-in girlfriend living in Kishiwada, Osaka Prefecture, had been arrested on suspicion of attempting to murder the man’s fifteen-year-old son through starvation. The boy began to live with the couple, along with his brother, in the spring of 2001 after his parents divorced. They had given him almost no regular food over an 18 month period up to the previous November, when he had fallen into a coma. He was just 24 kilograms when found (almost half the weight he had been when last given a health check in 2002) and he had remained unconscious since being admitted to hospital. Reports the next day (YS 27 January 2004) said that the boy had not attended school during the previous eighteen months. Teachers had tried to visit and find out what was happening but had been threatened and intimidated by the father’s live-in girlfriend who had lodged complaints with the police at every visit saying that suspicions of abuse were groundless. The boy’s last homeroom teacher had even been threatened when he visited the boy in hospital. The father and his girlfriend insisted the boy was suffering from anorexia. The school said it had unofficially reported the matter to the Osaka prefectural child counselling centre ( jidosodanjo) in Kishiwada and an internal enquiry had started in November as soon as the boy was hospitalized to ascertain why the centre had not responded properly to the report. On 28 January, reportedly (YS 28 January 2004), the couple admitted to having abused the boy, saying that initially they were simply trying to teach him good manners as he had been badly behaved after he came to live with them (he had previously been living with his grandparents) and that the abuse had somehow escalated from there. The woman said she later felt she could not rescue the boy because she was worried about any repercussions there might have been for her own son who was also living with them. When the boy had become too weak to eat by himself
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in September 2003, they had decided to kill him. They had left him in a room of their apartment and they had not given him any food or water for about two months. When they called an ambulance on 2 November, they believed that he was dead; that he survived in a coma was due to the treatment he received at hospital. On 30 January (YS 30 January 2004), it was widely reported that neighbours had been aware of the abuse that was going on in the house. One neighbour who had found the boy being forced to stand in a passage outside the house had offered to help but the boy had said that he was too frightened of what might happen to him if anything was reported to the police. The noise from the abuse escalated soon afterwards and ultimately, unable to stand it, the neighbour was driven to move house. Other neighbours also admitted to having seen the boy being maltreated but none had passed on their concerns to the authorities. It was further reported that the previous June, the boy’s brother (who had also been living in the house) had run away and gone to live with his natural mother. Not surprisingly, there was widespread alarm and condemnation from all sides as the details of these horrendous events emerged. How could this have happened to a fifteen-year-old boy; surely child abuse was something which happened to small children? Why had no one – the boy’s natural mother, the neighbours, the police, the school, the local voluntary child welfare worker ( jido minseiin), the prefectural child welfare centre workers – done anything about it? Gradually answers emerged to most of these conundrums. The boy’s natural mother, knowing about the abuse through her other son who had run away to be with her, was trying to use lawyers to gain access to her son who was being abused, but this was proving a slow process. The neighbours did not know to whom they should report such cases of abuse, as they knew nothing about the child protection systems which existed in Osaka. The police had never received an official report about the case, even though the report that the jidosodanjo had received from the school should have been passed on them; their only contact with the case had been through the abusing woman who was complaining of interference by the school in her domestic affairs. The school – while subject to much harsh public criticism – said that it felt that it had done as much as it could to report the situation to the correct authorities, and had clearly felt intimidated from taking matters further. The local jido minseiin, as in many areas of Japan, was a largely symbolic individual who had been very inactive in finding out if there were any problems of abuse in his area and knew nothing about this case.1 The workers at the local jidosodanjo received the worst of the criticism and the head of the Kishiwada jidosodanjo was seen evening after evening on television bowing low in apology for the failures of her office. It emerged that although the jidosodanjo had received the call from the school concerned about the possibility of abuse, this call had been taken by a new worker who had been in post for a mere ten days. He had previously been working in the administration section and had received no training in child protection. He simply could not conceive that a fifteen-yearold boy could be held against his own will when he reportedly had been seen outside and apparently free to run away. Although he duly noted the call, he did not pass it to his superior and hence no further action was taken.
Policing the Japanese family 149 Much of the given evidence came out in an independent inquiry which was undertaken into the whole case. This was the first such independent inquiry in the history of Japanese child welfare (all previous inquiries had been internal) and it was significant that it should have happened with a case which had occurred in Osaka since one of the greatest ironies of the Kishiwada case was that Osaka has long been considered to be at the forefront of dealing with child abuse problems in Japan.2 While the details of the Kishiwada Jido Gyakutai Jiken were sufficient to ensure that it would be a news story for several days, one reason why it remained in the news for so long was that it came to light at exactly the same time as a major review was taking place in Japan of two child abuse-related laws, the Child Welfare Law (Jido Fukushiho) and the Child Abuse Prevention Law (Jido Gyakutai Boshiho). The key issues being debated in the context of the laws related directly to what might have been done in the Kishiwada incident. In the case of the Child Welfare Law, the key issue was whether courts should be given powers to intervene in child abuse cases and to enforce closer working ties between municipal bodies that become aware of cases, such as jidosodanjo, local police and schools. In the case of the Child Abuse Prevention Law the key question was whether the revised law should stipulate that jidosodanjo could request police investigations in cases where parents refuse to allow officials to enter their homes to check on a child (DY 21 February 2004). While the reforms of the Child Welfare Law were seen as relatively unproblematic, those of the Child Abuse Prevention Law were seen as very controversial. Even given the circumstances of the Kishiwada case, the idea that the police should be given the powers to forcibly enter a household against the wishes of the parents was seen as dramatically changing the relationship between the family and the state. In order to understand this situation better, it is necessary to have some more background information into the whole discovery of child abuse and domestic violence in Japan over the past decade.
The ‘discovery’ of child abuse As Ann Buchanan (1996), in her overview of the child abuse literature shows, there is a familiar cycle in the way that societies deal with the issue of child abuse. They will first deny its existence, then gradually ‘discover’ it, set up ways of ‘measuring’ it and then put in place measures to deal with it, and finally, believing that the problem is being properly tackled, move on to deal with other social problems. Over time, therefore, the issue of child abuse will disappear from the political agenda before it is rediscovered at some later date. Exactly this same cycle can be seen in Japan. The only difference from other countries is perhaps that in the Japanese case there developed in the 1980s a literature which sought to explain why it was that Japan was immune to child abuse and why it was a problem in western societies. As I have discussed elsewhere (Goodman 2002: 133–135), the reasons given for the absence of child abuse related to the existence of social structures in
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Japanese society which many at the time believed could explain why the society was so successful, both socially and economically, in the 1980s. These included stable families, which took care of the elderly, and had low divorce rates, almost no illegitimacy and very few teenage mothers; the best educated and most mature mothers in the world; stable communities which enjoyed good relations with the police, local schools and voluntary welfare officers and, of course, a stable society, with very low unemployment, little poverty and low crime rates. Indeed those same features which were among those which Harvard Professor Ezra Vogel (1980) had famously said made Japan ‘Number One’ were seen as also making it hard for child abuse to go undetected. Others, influenced largely by the cultureand-personality school in anthropology which described Japan in terms of certain innate social values, suggested that for cultural reasons child abuse – at least as it was known in the West – was unlikely to emerge in Japan (see Wagatsuma 1981, for the best-known exposition in English of this argument). Although there were, throughout the 1980s, some specialists who insisted that there existed child abuse problems in Japan, it was no coincidence that their views did not receive a wider audience until the Japanese economy began to go into recession at the beginning of the 1990s. During the 1990s, almost all of those features of Japanese society which only a decade earlier has been seen as its strengths – its industrial relations, political organizations, even its education system – came under severe attack as being responsible for its current problems. The Japanese family, as we shall see, has been no exception to this trend. The apparent rise in cases of child abuse in the 1990s was blamed on the almost complete lack of paternal involvement in child raising (almost 60 per cent of abusers were reported to be mothers, 90 per cent of them natural mothers) and the lack of support for mothers in a society where they were expected not only to naturally know how to mother but also to do it perfectly (see Ohinata 2000, for a good account of these problems). As I have documented in detail elsewhere (Goodman 2002), however, while the changing economic conditions of Japan might have made the public receptive to the idea that there was a child abuse problem, awareness of this problem had to be constructed and disseminated. Here, the interests of a number of parties coincided. The main actors in constructing the debate about child abuse were lawyers, paediatricians, nurses at the local health centres (hokenfu), a few academics such as Yoshiko Ikeda (see, for example, Ikeda 1987 which was the most important single book on the topic of child abuse in Japan in that decade) and a few wellknown and outspoken individuals who worked in family courts, jidosodanjo and children’s homes ( yogoshisetsu). In response to pressure from these groups, in 1990 the Ministry of Health and Welfare constructed an official definition of child abuse – limited to the four categories of physical abuse and neglect or the refusal to protect, sexual abuse and psychological abuse and established the category of ‘abuse’ (gyakutai) among the reasons for a consultation at jidosodanjo and began to publish statistics annually. The first major initiatives in dealing with the perceived new and growing problems of child abuse, however, were private. These were the establishment of
Policing the Japanese family 151 two child abuse telephone counselling services ( jido gyakutai sodan denwa) in 1990 and 1991 in Osaka and Tokyo respectively. The Osaka Line was set up by a voluntary group which called itself Jido Gyakutai Boshi Kyokai (Association for the Prevention of Child Abuse, APCA). It received 90 per cent of its funding from the Kansai Television Company – which screened three one-hour documentaries on child abuse in 1989 – and it was a non-profitmaking, non-governmental organization staffed by part-time workers. A year later, a voluntary organization called Kodomo no Gyakutai Boshi Centre (Centre for Child Abuse Prevention, CCAP) set up a line in Tokyo. The opening of the Tokyo Line in May 1991 was preceded by a large conference which brought together a number of different groups to discuss child abuse from a variety of perspectives. This conference, together with the opening of the telephone lines, presaged a sudden growth in awareness of child abuse in Japan and a new vocabulary – specifically the expression ‘jido gyakutai’ – quickly entered the public arena. An analysis by Ueno and Nomura (2003: 16) of the keyword expressions ‘kodomo’ or ‘jido’ (both meaning child) with the word ‘gyakutai’ (meaning abuse) in the Asahi Shinbun (Tokyo Edition) shows no more than 4 uses of it in any year during the 1980s but 17 in 1990. By the mid-1990s, discussion of child abuse had begun to become a regular part of the world of child welfare specialists. Official figures on child abuse, while apparently still very low by North American and north European standards, had begun to show the kind of exponential growth that those societies had seen in the 1970s and 1980s. During 1999, the issue of child abuse was forced into the public consciousness even more strongly. According to Ueno and Nomura (2003: 16), the number of references in the Asahi jumped from 56 in 1998 to 126 in 1999 to 266 in 2000 and 325 in 2001, before it began to drop slightly in 2002. In large part, this was due to the increasing vigour of citizen’s groups throughout the 1990s, which in turn had become considerably sensitized to the issues of children’s rights by the debates which had taken place in Japan during the early 1990s in relation to whether the country should, or should not, become a signatory to the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (see Goodman 1996 for a full account of this debate). At the end of 1999, it was announced that there was a great increase in the number of reports to jidosodanjo about suspicions of child abuse from members of the public (MS 16 November 1999). Reports in the media, which had previously been written at the level of discussing the overall levels of abuse, began to focus increasingly on individual cases, often in gruesome detail. While most reports focussed on abuse in the family home, other reports also described horrendous cases of abuse taking place in unregulated kindergartens and private welfare institutions. Under pressure of such reports of dramatic rises in cases of child abuse, the government announced that to tackle the problem it would increase its budget by an unprecedented 90 per cent to 900 million yen from April 2000 (YS 29 August 1999). This was then increased by a further 500 per cent to 4.7 billion by fiscal 2003 and yet another 350 per cent to 16.6 billion yen for fiscal 2004 (YS 18 February 2004), all against a background of severe government cuts in overall public spending.
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In May 2000, the Japanese Diet passed legislation (to come into effect in November of the same year) to tackle what was now widely accepted to be a serious problem of child abuse in Japanese society. The new law greatly strengthened the powers of the heads of the 157 prefectural child consultation centres (jidosodanjo) both to take children into care and to prevent parents from removing them or even contacting them once they were in care. It made it mandatory for those working in the educational, welfare and medical fields to report any suspicions of abuse to the appropriate authorities. It obliged the police to provide back-up to officials conducting on-the-spot inspections of the houses of families where officials suspect abuse might be taking place, and it provided that abuse – which was fully defined in law for the first time – was no longer permitted under the guise of discipline or childrearing. Even while the new law was being enacted, however, there were those who felt that it did not go far enough. In particular, the requirement for police to have firm evidence that abuse was taking place before they could enter a home was seen as too weak a provision. Hence it was decided that the law would be reviewed in three years, and it was this review which was taking place as the Kishiwada child abuse incident hit the newspapers.
The ‘discovery’ of domestic violence At almost exactly the same time that the new law on child abuse came into being, the first ever Law on Prevention of Spouse Violence and Protection of Victims (Haigusha kara no Boryoku Boshi, Higaisha Hogoho), was also enacted. Matters around this issue had also changed rapidly during the 1990s. According to Mioko Fujieda (1989), domestic violence in Japan during the 1980s was discussed solely in terms of violence against children by their parents (kateinai boryoku); there was virtually no discussion of violence against women perpetrated either by husbands or partners. Instead, there was, she says, a commonly-held theory (see, for example, the work of Kumagai 1979, undertaken in the 1970s) that Japanese males were ‘naturally’ less violent than men in the United States or Europe. Against this, Fujieda (1989) argued that not only did social conditions make it very difficult for battered women to speak out (rendering the problem invisible) but also that the notion of domestic violence against women was still so confused and unformed that many people simply could not recognize it, even though several surveys (see Burns 2005: 48) suggested that the levels and types of violence experienced by women in Japan might well be comparable to those elsewhere. Even in the mid-1990s – by when ‘husband’s violence’ was the second most widely cited reason given by women filing for divorce arbitration – there was only one public shelter specifically for battered women (in Kanagawa Prefecture) in the whole of Japan (Hada 1995: 267). Attempts to raise consciousness about domestic violence in Japan, however, were increasingly being made by feminist groups, in particular a group called the Domestic Violence Action and Research Group which undertook survey research that formed the basis of a report submitted to the UN World Conference on Women in Beijing in 1995 (see Yoshihama
Policing the Japanese family 153 and Sorenson 1994). As Junko Kozu (1999: 50–51) points out, great care needs to be taken in how one reads this report; the women who participated were all volunteers and proportionally more than three times as many were divorced as in the general population. As a direct result of the survey report, however, as well as pressure from women’s groups in Japan (and the fact that neighbouring governments in Taiwan and South Korea were beginning to enact legislation), the Japanese government began for the first time to collect statistics on domestic violence in 1998 (Gaspar-Pereira 2003: 24). These suggested that the rates of abuse in Japan might be at least as high as in other nations, both inside and outside Asia (Kattoulas 2000: 34). The figures were hard to read, however, since a government survey estimated that even in 2001 less than 1 per cent of women who experienced domestic violence in Japan contacted the police (Radford and Tsutsumi 2004: 6).3 Nevertheless, it was an individual case of spouse abuse in 1999 that suddenly and dramatically parachuted the topic into the mainstream of public discourse. The case was the arrest in Vancouver of the 51-year-old local Japanese Counsel for domestic violence. It was not so much his arrest but his alleged comment – that hitting one’s wife was acceptable under Japanese cultural practices – that led to the event becoming an international story.4 In Japan, its implications were particularly widely discussed and the media quickly began to report on other cases of domestic violence. As with child abuse, commentators began to produce explanations for what appeared to be the development of this new problem; in particular, some related it to the stressful nature of Japanese society, especially for those in elite positions who were indicated to be those most likely to abuse. Another explanation that appeared, according to Gaspar-Pereira (2003: 23), was that the shrinking of the size of the Japanese family had led to men becoming excessively attached to their mothers and over-demanding of their wives. As Joyce Gelb (2003) explains, however, while the above incident and subsequent reporting helped to move the Japanese government towards establishing new law, the real pressure for legislation was led by an all-party alliance of female legislators in the House of Councillors, where women’s representation, at 17 per cent, was at its highest point ever. A law, popularly known as the ‘DV’ (Domestic Violence) Law, was passed in October 2001. It referred to violence as a ‘violation of human rights’, although Gelb (2003: 17) suggests its preamble is stronger than its provisions which are premised on assistance rather than rights. The law permitted protection orders to be issued for up to six months, with perpetrators being ordered to leave their homes for two weeks, though this could only be enforced once (as a recognition of perpetrators’ property rights). Those who violate these terms can be fined up to a million yen or jailed for up to one year. As a direct response to the law, arrests in 2002 for spousal abuse were four times higher than in 1998; the National Police and other agencies recorded dramatic increases, up to 50 per cent, in reports of domestic abuse (Gelb 2003: 22); there was an annual increase in consultations at prefectural governments’ domestic violence aid centres of 22 per cent in 2003 from a year earlier (DY 11 February 2004); and a rise of 30 per cent in restraining orders in domestic violence cases in 2003 from the
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previous year (Lewis 2004). At the same time, the Justice Ministry began to undertake its first surveys of domestic abuse as the Ministry of Health and Welfare had begun to do with child abuse a decade earlier. As consciousness of the issue of domestic violence rose, so did the number of reported cases: incidents of assault by husbands against wives dealt with by the police rose over six times between 1998 and 2002 (Burns 2005: 49). Abusers were reported to be habitual drinkers (75 per cent), overwhelmingly male (90 per cent) and in many cases (42.5 per cent) to have been violent in the presence of children suggesting that domestic violence and child abuse could not be seen as two separate issues (JT 21 January 2004). It can be seen that the raising of awareness and the enactment of legislation to deal with domestic abuse mirrored the case of child abuse in Japan very closely. Concerns that the legislation has not gone far enough are also very similar. As Gelb (2003: 19) points out, ‘while the DV law urges the police “shall endeavour” to prevent victims from suffering harm from spousal violence, this is a recommendation, not an obligation’. Why is there this reluctance in both the cases of domestic violence and child abuse to give the police greater powers in relation to the family?
Policing the family The word ‘policing’ in the title of this chapter is used in the sense popularized by the French sociologist of the family, Jacques Donzelot (1980), in his classic book La Police des Famille (translated as The Policing of Families). Donzelot, who was a close (perhaps the closest) colleague of Michel Foucault in the 1970s, used the term ‘policing’ in the sense of those political technologies that invested the body, health, modes of subsistence and lodging – indeed the entire space of everyday existence – in European countries from the eighteenth century onwards. ‘The aim of policing’, he wrote (ibid.: 7), ‘is to make everything that composes the state serve to strengthen and increase its power, and likewise serve the public welfare’. In some ways, if one takes Donzelot’s definition, Japan might appear to be a very highly ‘policed’ state. The state has, since the Meiji period, been heavily involved in the running and the organization of many of the nation’s social institutions; the education system is one of the most highly centralized in the world and economic development in the post-war period was driven by a highly co-ordinated set of state policies, sometime described as the ‘developmental state’. On the other hand, Japan has never developed what Donzelot (as well as his best-known 1970s American counterpart, Ivan Illich (1977)) considers the profession which has perhaps played the most important role in policing families in the past century, namely social work. Similarly, Japan has a very underdeveloped (by OECD standards) system of home helps, health visitors and professional probation officers, all of whom form part of the system that Donzelot sees as ‘policing the family’. Indeed, while the Japanese state has been closely involved in policing extra-familial institutions (such as the education system or, some would argue, even industrial development) and in policing the family as a unit
Policing the Japanese family 155 (e.g. through the household registration system), it seems to have gone out of its way to avoid intervention in intra-familial affairs. This can be seen perhaps most clearly in the 1970s rhetoric of the ‘Japanese-style welfare society’ (Nihongata shakai fukushi shakai) which emphasized that rather than the state being responsible for social welfare, the burden of responsibility should fall on the three institutions of the community, company and the family. An important element of this ideology was that the granting of ‘individual rights’ to family members in the western welfare model had led to the collapse of the family unit and a wide variety of social problems (see Goodman 2000: 24–27). As Burns (2005: 52), in her excellent study of court cases involving sexual violence in Japan, puts it: ‘Dominant discourses construct the “family” as the fundamental social unit, central to Japanese identity, and so to speak of rape in marriage, domestic violence or incest, potentially disrupts the ideological fabric of Japanese society’. Marcia Goodman (1986, cited in Burns 2005: 59) indeed suggests that, in the 1980s, Japanese prosecutors’ belief that they should not pursue cases of intra-familial violence amounted to ‘the state’s transferral of its power to maintain social control to patriarchal systems operating within the family, workplaces or small communities’.5 It is highly significant, therefore, for the relationship between the state and the family, that the Child Abuse Prevention Law (Jido Gyakutai Boshiho) and the Law on Prevention of Spouse Violence and Protection of Victims (Haigusha kara no Boryoku Boshi, Higaisha Hogoho) both gave much greater powers to state authorities to intervene in contexts which previously had been seen as the exclusive and private domains of the family. Parents, for example, were no longer seen as being ‘naturally’ and unquestionably good and it was no longer unthinkable that they might, in certain circumstances, resort to abusing their children. The authority of fathers and husbands was no longer considered sacrosanct. The stability of the family – seen by many in the 1980s as one of Japan’s greatest comparative strengths over many western nations – was no longer accepted as necessarily superior to the rights of its individual members, particularly women and children. Even those who worked with children – in nurseries, child welfare institutions or as foster carers, for example – who had previously been held to be largely above suspicion, were no longer immune from prosecution.6 One can see most clearly how far this new ‘policing of the family’ has developed by examining the role of the police themselves. In the early 1990s, there began for the first time to be serious questioning of the fact that the Japanese police were reluctant – and of course Japan was far from alone in this – to get involved in ‘domestic disputes’. The section of the police that dealt with such cases, recently renamed the seikatsu anzenka (life safety section), had little or no specialist training in dealing with issues of abuse and tended to be looked down upon by other sections of the force. According to a report by a voluntary children’s rights group in the early 1990s, girls who were picked up by the police for teenage prostitution sometimes claimed that they had been abused at home but were still often returned there without their allegations being examined (JTW 13 June 1994). In the late 1990s, Miyamoto and Ishibashi (1998) undertook
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a survey of police involvement in child abuse cases which suggested that little had changed during the decade. Their survey covered 315 members of JaSPCAN (a newly established interdisciplinary group of professionals involved in investigating child abuse) including doctors, workers from jidosodanjo, health workers and teachers. Of the respondents, 263 (83.5 per cent) in the survey had dealt with abuse cases, yet only 93 (35 per cent) had ever been in communication about those cases with the police, including less than a third of the doctors surveyed. Of the 93, 30 reported that nothing further happened as a result of their communication with the police and that in one case the abuse appeared to have actually got worse. Only 13 cases led to arrest. Moreover, even if the police did wish to pursue a case, it was widely recognized that the courts were reluctant to become involved in issues of child abuse because of the rights afforded to parents in Japan; although there was a provision for removing parental powers under Article 33–36 of the 1947 Child Welfare Law, there were only ten instances in the whole country where this was in force in 1990. It was very significant, therefore, that the 2000 Child Abuse Prevention Law obliged the police to provide back-up to officials conducting on-the-spot inspections of the houses of families where they suspected abuse might be taking place. In April 2002, every police station in Japan was given, for the first time, detailed information on how to identify and handle suspected abuse cases (YS 11 April 2002). Indeed, it was clear that attitudes were changing even before the new law was fully implemented. In 2000, for example, there was a doubling in the number of applications to take children into care from the year before and a seventeenfold increase from only seven years earlier (MS 2 June 2001). According to a survey by the Mainichi newspaper, social workers forcibly entered 90 households where child abuse was suspected in the eleven-month period before the implementation of the new Child Abuse Prevention Law compared to a total of only 20 such ‘raids’ during the previous 42 years (MS 12 December 2001). Since the introduction of the Child Abuse Prevention Law, investigations and prosecutions of suspected abuse have proliferated and sentences have rapidly become increasingly severe. Indeed, as we saw in the Kishiwada case, officials have come increasingly under criticism for not intervening early enough in cases which have led to injury or even the death of children (see, for example, MS 13 April 2001 and 28 July 2001; YS 19 August 2001). Sections of the media have also become increasingly aware – and critical – of the fact that many officials dealing with child welfare issues are unqualified. According to an Asahi survey in 1999 (AS 7 February), less than 45 per cent of all staff who work in jidosodanjo (and none in Tokyo) had any specialist welfare qualifications and there has been mounting pressure on central government to consider the professionalization of social work (YS 28 May 2001). The following editorial from the Yomiuri Shinbun (YS 24 August 2002) made the point very forcibly: Last fiscal year, facilities conducted 24,000 consultations in connection with child abuse – more than 20 times the number a decade ago. However, the
Policing the Japanese family 157 number of counsellors has failed to keep pace with this increase. There are 1,627 counsellors attached to child abuse-prevention centres nationwide, up only 147 from last year. Also, more than half of the counsellors are believed to be non-professionals, often transferred from other sections, thus raising the criticism that they lack the relevant skills and experience to be working in the field. While the amount of money is much smaller than in the case of child abuse, the government has also begun to invest in measures to support women who are the victims of domestic violence. The 1997 Plan for Gender Equality 2000 (Danjo Kyodo Sankaku 2000-nen Plan), for example, called for an improvement in the number and quality of shelters for battered women and for the training of legal personnel to protects women’s rights (Burns 2005: 155). The effects of the new discourses about child and spouse abuse on the perception of the family as an agent of socialization in Japan have therefore clearly been significant. There is little doubt also that the issues are connected in as much as, as Sevenhuijsen (1998: 27) points out, ‘public interest in the dislocated family . . . reflects concern about the “ordinary family” ’. In short, the family, which had previously been seen as benign, if strict, has come to be seen as potentially harmful and dangerous. Fathers, step-fathers, grandfathers and workers in child welfare institutions who are convicted of abuse (almost always physical and emotional, only very rarely sexual, abuse) can increasingly expect to face custodial sentences in cases which a few years earlier would likely have been treated more leniently as being the result of excessive, but not cruel, discipline of children who needed a firm hand. The provisions of the DV Law and the Child Abuse Prevention Law and the recent debates about revising them, however, suggest that while there is a much greater acceptance, indeed demand, for policing of the Japanese family than only ten years ago, there still remains an element of inviolability to the family unit. In early 2004 when the revision of the DV Law was discussed it was proposed to extend from 2 weeks to 2 months the duration of a restraining order – so as to give abused women longer to find somewhere else to live – and to add former spouses and children of offenders to the list of those protected under its provisions (DY 11 February 2004). There was no proposal though to make it mandatory for the police to intervene in cases where they suspect abuse is taking place. More surprisingly, given the way in which the debate was being reported in the media (see YS 18 February 2004, 25 February 2004) and the support of the ruling coalition, when the House of Representatives passed the bill for revising the Child Abuse Prevention Law in March 2004, it did not include measures to allow police officers to forcibly enter a house where a child is suspected of being seriously abused without permission from the child’s parents, although it did stipulate that anyone who suspects that a child is being abused must report their suspicions to the jidosodanjo (YS 17 March 2004). The opposition to the granting of the extra powers to the police were voiced in terms of fears of the abuse of such
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powers; a group of lawyers working on child abuse cases even suggested that such powers might be in breach of the Japanese Constitution. The main objection though came from those at the forefront of such child abuse cases who felt that empowering the police in such a way would interfere in their work with the parents of the abused child. In Tokyo, under the protection of the bombastic governor, Shintaro Ishihara, it is reported that the police have been entering homes where they suspect abuse has been taking place over the last few years in contravention of the law. In Osaka, perhaps ironically if we remember the Kishiwada child abuse incident with which we started this chapter, the role of the jidosodanjo (child consultation centres) has generally been more developed and there remains a belief that it is important to work with, and keep together as far as possible, families even where abuse may be occurring. The position of the jidosodanjo, however, in the area of child protection became considerably weakened in April 2005 when the provisions of the revised Child Welfare Law meant that municipal governments took over some of their duties, ostensibly because the centres were unable to deal with the volume of requests for help that they were receiving (JT 7 April 2005). While the state has become much more heavily involved in the policing of the Japanese family over the past few years, it is still clearly open to debate as to where the line will be drawn. What is clear is that the relationship between the state and the family as a social unit has changed irrevocably.
Notes 1 For a detailed account of the jido minseiin system and how it operates in Japan, see Goodman (1998). Essentially, jido minseiin are high status people within the local community who are mandated to report on local conditions to the public authorities and help local people with social welfare needs. Since their work is completely voluntary, however, the amount of time and effort they can put into it varies enormously and, since the requirements for selection necessitate both local standing and available time, they tend to be elderly and retired. The average age of jido minseiin is over sixty and many are in their seventies. As a result, some critics of this system feel that they cannot keep in touch with emerging social problems, such as child abuse and domestic abuse which are the topics of this chapter. 2 This irony was only compounded when another, remarkably similar, case of severe neglect in Sumiyoshi ward in Osaka was widely reported in early March 2004. In this case, two women were charged with confining the twelve-year-old son of one of the women in a room in her apartment for about nineteen months and starving him to death (YS 7 March 2004). 3 Moreover, just as there are culturally specific forms of child abuse (such as shutting children out of the house rather than locking them in), so there are culturally specific forms of partner abuse, such as overturning the dinner table (the key symbol of the woman’s role), throwing water or salt at women (marking them as impure), and refusing to wear condoms during sex, when other means of contraception have not been easily available, see Gough (1995). This considerably complicates a direct comparison of statistics on domestic violence in different societies. 4 According to Burns, Former Prime Minister Eisaku Sato . . . spoke . . . publicly of regularly beating his wife, and the daughter of former Prime Minister Kakuei Tanaka has stated that her father encouraged her husband to beat her ‘if it [made her husband] feel more like a man’. (2005: 45)
Policing the Japanese family 159 These pronouncements from the early 1980s, however, seem to have raised little public debate at the time either inside or outside Japan suggesting that attitudes had changed not only in Japanese society but also elsewhere in the intervening years. 5 Burns (2005: 128–129) cites a number of cases from the early 1980s where wives were held at least in part responsible for their husbands’ violence because of their refusal, or reluctance, to engage in marital sexual activity. 6 In an excoriating article in the journal Ronza, Masaaki Noda (2004) highlights the fact that 90 per cent of the institutions which look after children who have been abused (yogoshisetsu and nyujiin) are private, which means that staff are often forced to work long hours and have little time to develop good human relations with the children. The result, he argues, is the prevalence of abuse in Japan’s child protection facilities, leading him to conclude that ‘it is society itself which is abusing children’.
References Newspapers and annual reports cited in the text AS: Asahi Shinbun (Asahi Newspaper) DY: Daily Yomiuri JT: Japan Times JTW: Japan Times Weekly (changed to fortnightly from 1999) MS: Mainichi Shinbun (Mainichi Newspaper) YS: Yomiuri Shinbun (Yomiuri Newspaper) Buchanan, A. (1996) Cycles of Child Maltreatment: Facts, Fallacies and Interventions, Chichester: John Wiley and Sons. Burns, C. (2005) Sexual Violence and the Law in Japan, London and New York: RoutledgeCurzon. Donzelot, J. (1980) The Policing of Families, translated from the French by Robert Hurley, London: Hutchinson. Fujieda, M. (1989) ‘Some Thoughts on Domestic Violence in Japan’, Review of Japanese Culture and Society, December: 60–66. Gaspar-Pereira, H. M. (2003) Patterns of Family Violence in Japan, Wellesley Centers for Women, Wellesley, MA. Wellesley Centers for Women Working Paper Series, Working Paper No. 411. Gelb, J. (2003) ‘Domestic violence policy in Japan: a comparative perspective’, paper delivered at the International Sociological Association Meeting on Poverty, Social Welfare and Social Policy, University of Toronto, August 21–24. Goodman, M. E. (1986) ‘The Exercise and Control of Prosecutorial Discretion in Japan’, Pacific Basin Law Journal, 5 (16): 16–95. Goodman, R. (1996) ‘On introducing the UN convention of the rights of the child into Japan’ in R. Goodman and I. Neary (eds) Case Studies on Human Rights in Japan, Japan Library Richmond Surrey: Curzon Press, pp. 109–140. —— (1998) ‘The delivery of personal social services and the “Japanese-style welfare state” ’ in R. Goodman, G. White and H-J. Kwon (eds), The East Asian Welfare Model: Welfare Orientalism and the State, London and New York: Routledge. —— (2000) Children of the Japanese State: The Changing Role of Child Protection Institutions in Contemporary Japan, Oxford: Oxford University Press. —— (2002) ‘Child abuse in Japan: “discovery” and the development of policy’ in R. Goodman (ed.), Family and Social Policy in Japan: Anthropological Approaches, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
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Gough, D. (1995) ‘Domestic violence in Japan’, B.C. Institute on Family Violence, 4 (4): 18–19. Hada, A. (1995) ‘Domestic violence’ in K. Fujimura Fanselow and A. Kameda (eds), Japanese Women: New Feminist Perspectives on the Past, Present and Future. New York: City University of New York, The Feminist Press. Ikeda, Y. (1987) Jido Gyakutai (Child Abuse). Tokyo: Chuo Koronsha. Illich, I. (1977) Disabling Professions, London: Salem, New Hampshire: M. Boyars. Kattoulas, V. (2000) ‘Conspiracy of Silence’, Far Eastern Economic Review, February (3): 34–36. Kozu, J. (1999) ‘Domestic Violence in Japan’, American Psychologist, 54 (1): 50–54. Kumagai, F. (1979) ‘Social Class, Power and Husband–Wife Violence in Japan’, Journal of Comparative Family Studies, 10: 91–105. Lewis, L. ‘Japan’s Hidden Shame’, The Times, 23 July 2004. Miyamoto, S. and Ishibashi, N. (1998) ‘Kodomo e no gyakutai e no taio ni kansuru kenkyu: Keisatsu to no renkei no arikata ni kansuru kento’ (Research on how to deal with the abuse of children: An examination of co-operation with the police), in Nihon Kodomo no Gyakutai Boshi Kenkyukai (ed.), Dai Yonkai Gakujutsu Shukai Programme, Nihon Kodomo no Gyakutai Boshi Kenkyukai, Wakayama. Noda, M. (2004) ‘Jido fukushi zentai ga amari ni mo mazushi sugiru: Shakai seido to bunka ga gyakutai wo umu (The Utter Poverty of Child Welfare: The Social System and Culture Produce Abuse), Ronza, 10 (4): April. Ohinata, M. (2000) Bosei-ai Shinwa no Wana (The Pitfalls of the Maternal Love Myth) Tokyo: Nihon Hyoronsha. Radford, L. and Tsutsumi, K. (2004) ‘Globalization and Violence Against Women: Inequalities in Risks, Responsibilities and Blame in the UK and Japan’, Women’s Studies International Forum, 27: 1–12. Sevenhuijsen, S. (1998) Citizenship and the Ethics of Care: Feminist Considerations on Justice, Morality and Politics, translated from the Dutch by L. Savage. London and New York: Routledge. Ueno, K. and Nomura, T. (2003) Jido Gyakutai no Kozo: Hokaku sarereu Kazoku (The Structure of Child Abuse: The Family in Captivity), Tokyo: Sekaishisho Seminar. Vogel E. F. (1980) Japan As Number One: Lessons for America, Tokyo: Tuttle. Wagatsuma, H. (1981) ‘Child abandonment and infanticide: A Japanese case’, in J. E. Korbin (ed.), Child Abuse and Neglect: Cross-cultural Perspectives, Los Angeles, CA and London: University of California Press. Yoshihama, M. and Sorenson, S. B. (1994) ‘Physical, Sexual, and Emotional abuse by Male Intimates: Experience of Women in Japan’, Violence and Victims, 9 (1): 63–77.
10 Changing families and policy responses to an ageing Japanese society Misa Izuhara
Introduction The rapid ageing of the population is a widely reported fact at the turn of the new century and its implications both for the economy and society as a whole have been well debated in Japan. A combination of increased longevity and a decline in fertility has accelerated the speed of societal ageing. Approximately 19 per cent of the total population are currently aged 65 and older, and this rate is predicted to reach 25 per cent by 2015. Such rapid demographic change has started to put enormous pressure on both public expenditure and family resources partly due to increasing pension expenditure and health and social care needs among older people. The main aim of this chapter is to explore the changing relationship between the family and the state in the delivery of long-term care in the context of recent social, economic and demographic changes. Despite the development of public welfare in the post-war period, the family has always played a central role in care delivery. In other words, assumptions about family responsibilities have been built into this particular area of social policy. In fact, any government wishing to restrict public expenditure is likely to explore how family ties can be strengthened either explicitly or implicitly by defining such obligations (Finch 1989). How far these obligations extend within family structures (how many generations up and down vertically and also horizontally) and also what type of support is expected depend on different national contexts. Policies tend to draw a boundary between the state and the family, but such family–state boundaries are often highly contested (Fox Harding 1996) and shift over time according to changes in economic circumstances, socio-demographic patterns and policy agenda. In this context, this chapter first examines how the Japanese family is actually being transformed, and then moves on to discuss how the law and policy determine the role of the family in relation to older people, and likewise how they respond to changes happening in the family. A particular focus is given to the analysis of the causes and consequences of the new social insurance scheme for long-term care. I conclude with some qualitative accounts of changing family relations under the new social contract. First of all, however, I will start with a few definitions, which may help us to understand the diverse nature of the groups under discussion.
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‘Old age’: definitions and misconceptions Old age is defined and experienced differently in different cultures, and varies according to gender and social class (e.g. Wilson 2000). Japanese people traditionally defined old age chronologically as being sixty years and older, as did most of the other societies influenced by Chinese culture. The sixty-first year after birth, called kanreki (return of the calendar), was often regarded as the beginning of a person’s second childhood. Old age can be also defined by life stages. Many cultures give some importance to life stage as distinct from chronological age (ibid.). People can reach old age in a variety of ways such as becoming a grandparent. However, old age is not only a biological fact but also socially and politically constructed, and social policy plays a crucial role in this process. For instance, the retirement age and eligibility for pensions make people ‘old’ in social and economic terms. In this sense, the government can control the process by shifting the retirement age according to the nation’s demographic trends, available public resources or economic conditions. In this chapter, unless specifically stated, old age is generally defined as sixty-five years and older. There is another common misconception that older people are frail or dependent. Older people are a diverse group of people with different ages, varying degrees of health, financial and family backgrounds. In fact, many older people nowadays maintain their independence through most (if not all) of their adult life without a large degree of support from their family, the state and other sources. For example, only 13 per cent of those aged 65 and over were estimated to be receiving nursing care in 2000 (Ministry of Health and Welfare 2000: 60). The prolonged longevity (78.4 years for men and 85.3 years for women in 2003) however means a growing number of people are now living well into their eighties, and this age group exhibits the most intense rate of growth. Only 1 per cent of the population was aged 80 and older in 1975 but this had risen to 3.7 per cent by 2000 and is expected to increase to 7 per cent by 2015. Although ‘old age’ is not necessarily a synonym for ill health and decline, the necessity for long-term care is likely to increase with age. Although I use the term ‘the family’ throughout this chapter, there is no such thing as a universal type or structure to describe ‘family’ since there are diverse ways in which people live today (see Gittins 1993). However, governments or social policies often define what ‘the family’ is or should be so that resources can be allocated to support certain types of families and exclude others. Moreover, the term ‘household’ needs to be distinguished from ‘the family’. All family members do not necessarily share a household and a household can consist of non-family members, and thus the distinction between the two can have some importance in policy terms.
Changing families and households There are a number of common pressures and processes confronting family structures and resources. Social change, demographic shifts, and changes in
Changing families and policy responses 163 100 6+ 5 4 3 2 1
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economies and the labour market are some of the key drivers of family change. Another point that we need to clarify is what we mean by changing families – what aspects of the family have changed or are changing in recent decades? Changes have been observed in both the structure and function of the family. Factors such as changing social norms and economic restructuring have put greater strains on family life and produced a greater diversity of household structures in the latter half of the post-war period. A notable trend has been the move towards smaller households (Figure 10.1). There are many explanations underpinning this phenomenon such as macroeconomic factors (economic growth and unemployment rates) as well as the various life-course factors of individuals. Although marriage is still a popular institution, divorce rates have increased from 0.7 per 1000 population in 1960 to 2.25 by 2003 (Ministry of Heath, Labour and Welfare, Vital Statistics). The decline in marriage and fertility rates (on average only 1.29 babies were born to women over their entire reproductive age in 2003) is another contributing factor. Having a smaller family has become a trend, but this is also partly due to the general decline in marriage rates, since births to unmarried mothers remain uncommon in Japan (this trend is similar to Italy described by Bettio in Chapter 4): 54 per cent of women in the 25–29 age group and 27 per cent of whose in the 30–32 age group were single in 2000 (Management and Coordination Agency 2000). In other words, more people will be out of the ‘conventional’ family structure due to the increasing rates of divorce, remarriage or single households. When family structures become more diverse, it is likely to influence the transformation of conventional family relations to a greater extent. One form of intergenerational relationship notably strong in Japan is represented structurally by living arrangements. In the past, the vast majority of people spent
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their entire life living within the extended family and half of older people still live with their adult children. In the past, dokyo [co-residency] may have been viewed as a mode of financial survival, since older people who live separately from their children are generally those with greater assets (Hayashi et al. 1988). The government has viewed this pattern of household structure as a unique asset, and so housing-related policies and initiatives have been introduced to promote intergenerational living and reinforce intergenerational solidarity. These include tax breaks for those who live intergenerationally and the two-generation housing loan (a loan inheritance system over generations). Post-war trends have shown a dramatic shift towards independent living, which has resulted in an increase in the number of elderly-only households, while three-generation extended families continue to decline (Figure 10.2). Among older people, the older age group (85⫹) are more likely to co-reside (71 per cent in 1990) than their younger counterparts (53 per cent among 65–69) (Ministry of Health and Welfare 2000). Although some argue that it is a temporary arrangement or a mere postponement until their circumstances change (Hashimoto 1993), a steady decline in co-residency among all age groups may require a different explanation. Moreover, the composition of dokyo families has moved away from the traditional three-generation household where older people live
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Figure 10.2 Type of households among those aged 65 and above. Source: Ministry of Health and Welfare, Kosei Gyosei Kiso Chosa (1980–1984); Kokumin Seikatsu Kiso Chosa (1986–1998).
Changing families and policy responses 165 with the eldest son and his family. This is partly linked to the changes described in family formation. For example, despite the general decline in co-residency, the number of older people living with unmarried children has increased from 16.5 per cent in 1980 to 19 per cent in 1998 (38 per cent of all co-resident households) (Ministry of Health and Welfare 2000). Unlike the English tradition of keeping the youngest daughter at home as a carer, these unmarried children are likely to be in employment. Living with the family of one’s own daughter is also increasingly popular. Co-residency certainly provides a perfect structural context for exchanging family support, reinforcing responsibilities, and sometimes making asset transfer easier between the generations. However, living nearby without sharing accommodation is another effective way of maintaining both independence and family support. The ratio of older people living near to their children (either as a separate unit in the same house; a separate house on the same land, or in the same neighbourhood) has increased from 9 per cent in 1986 to 12.7 per cent in 1998 (Ministry of Health and Welfare 2000). Such family nuclearization is likely to complicate care responsibilities pertaining to the family that had been the mainstay of existing social policy, but at the same time such physical separation may result in a better relationship between carers and the cared-for without involving a considerable emotional burden. Structural changes do not always undermine the functional aspects of family relations; however such changes require different policy responses. In traditional families, where it is daughters-in-law in particular who look after older parents, many find it difficult to survive. Due to increased longevity, family carers have also been ageing, and periods of care have often become prolonged. The pool of family carers is shrinking partly because more women have joined the labour market for paid work, which is increasingly necessary to supplement household income under the current recession. The previously defined ‘generational contract’ is now being transformed (Izuhara 2003a).
Family obligation in the policy context There is a strong political and cultural expectation regarding the support families are supposed to provide to their members, and law and social policy have been used to shape and define such family obligations. Finch (1989) argues that public policies are important in framing the context of family obligations through alternative sources of support or the lack of such provision. Indeed, the government’s emphasis on family responsibilities has held back the development of some areas of welfare programmes. For example, while the principle of financial independence and the health status of older people was accepted in public policy under the national pension and medical insurance schemes, the delivery of practical and personal care has been largely left to family members until recently. In the following chapter, Trifiletti also provides a comparative account of the interlocking mechanisms between state, market and family with a particular reference to old-age care between Japan and Italy.
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In a sense, the establishment of the social insurance schemes of health and pensions ‘for all citizens’ in 1961 marked the beginning of a welfare state. However, the role of the state in the post-war period has been developed not to replace the existing functions of the family and companies (family dependency and the strong role of the corporate sector through established occupational welfare have been characteristics of the Japanese welfare mix). Rather, it was to build upon and enclose existing resources within the state umbrella. Consequently, thanks to the increased benefit levels of pension insurance, the income of older people has grown over the post-war period keeping pace with the general income growth of the working population. And this has partly caused the acceleration of family nuclearization. The ‘family’ is however still an important unit in policy terms. In Japan, the social security and tax systems have been developed based on the ‘family-as-a-unit’ rather than on the individual. Thus, women’s access to social security is often made through their dependent status within the family as wives. Pension reform in the mid-1980s further reinforced the position and benefits of housewives rather than working women.1 The discriminatory tax treatment of twoincome households also discourages wives from taking full-time employment. Many married women try not to exceed the maximum earning limit and stay in a dependant status in order to benefit fully from the taxation and welfare system. Therefore, the rise in female workers since the Equal Opportunity Act 1986 has been concentrated on fringe work, such as part-time jobs, without full occupational benefits (Osawa 1993). Such a mechanism has prevented women from becoming economically independent and has generated an economic ‘bond’ between couples, which continues to keep women in the institution of marriage. Moreover, the ‘family’ is still expected to support its elderly members, even financially, although the interpretation of such obligation is ambiguous in practice. The unit used for assessment (either ‘the [extended] family’ or ‘the household’) appears to be contentious in some areas of social policy. For example, when a person applied for public assistance, local government assesses the income, the assets and the ‘support ability’ of the household first, and then the extended family members even when they reside in separate households. Although the extended family is usually approached, in practice the authority cannot enforce such financial support from them. Instead, what they do is to reduce the amount of assistance or not grant it at all if they realize that other ‘family’ members are ‘able’ to support the applicant. The interpretation of such family obligations varies across local government offices. This is an important issue since 44 per cent of public assistance claimants were elderly people in the mid-1990s. As Peng (2002: 428) argues, ‘in a remarkable turnaround from the earlier policy of welfare retrenchment, the 1990s marked the beginning of social care expansion in Japan’. Until the 1980s, following the criticism of various planned welfare programmes (borne out of the oil crisis in the 1970s), policies for older people were targeted predominantly at those on low incomes or without family support. The major reform on policies towards older people started taking place at the end of the 1980s with a series of ‘Gold Plans’ (Ten Year Strategy on Health and Welfare for the Elderly), reflecting international trends for the promotion of ‘ageing-in-place’.
Changing families and policy responses 167 The result of these was an extension of existing programmes to a much wider section of the older population (Ogasawara et al. 1997). The main objective of the Plans had been to promote domiciliary care instead of costly institutional care. The income limit for receiving home help services was removed in 1982, although it has taken a while to remove eligibility restrictions further to include those who ‘cannot expect support from the family’. In reality, however many state-subsidized homes for older people are still occupied by low-income elders. Despite the expansion, a common criticism of the Plans was that the target numbers were too small, noting, for example, that the level of services planned for the year 2000 would still have been lower than the 1990s level of such services in many Western European countries (Ogawa and Retherford 1997).2 Criticisms were also directed to the fact that ‘in anticipation of a huge demand for care services after the introduction of the Gold Plan, local governments tightened the means test to limit the demand’ (Peng 2002: 429). This resulted in the exclusion of many older people from the public services and continued to target those on low incomes living alone, or without family support. Consequently, despite the introduction of the Gold Plans, 85 per cent of older people were still being cared for by their female family members (wife, daughters and daughters-in-law) at home in 1996 (Ministry of Health and Welfare 1998). The family–state relationship has been critical in terms of welfare provision, since a sudden change in the nature of the family and the rapidly ageing population in recent years has left social institutions unprepared. The mismatch between the existing provision and the increasing care needs of the older population and the inadequacy of social institutions to cope becomes further pronounced when women’s social participation such as labour force participation increases. The 1990s indeed saw the beginning of new changes in the social policy agenda. Adding to the above demographic shifts, the end of the economic bubble and subsequent recession over the last decade has led to a decline in tax revenue, which has made it increasingly hard for the government to match the expected increase in social security expenditure in an ageing society. Growing deficits in medical insurance are particularly problematic, partly due to the fact that most institutional long-term care has been provided in hospitals. ‘Social hospitalization’, where older people stay in hospitals for lengthy periods without critical medical conditions, has been a phenomenon found among many older Japanese people partly due to the structure of co-payments under medical insurance, the underdeveloped home care services, and the inadequate level of adaptation of many houses. The average length of stay in hospitals and other inpatient institutions is appreciably longer in Japan than in other industrial societies (e.g. nearly half of all hospital inpatients are sixty five years and older, and about one-third of these have been hospitalized for more than one year) (Ikegami 1997). There is thus an urgent need to separate long-term care from medical care with the expansion of long-term care services and the introduction of tighter systems of co-payment. Moreover, under the national health insurance schemes, user fees were introduced to older patients, those seventy years and older, for their health services in 1999. In this context, a new social insurance system on long-term care was introduced in April 2000.
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The introduction of a new ‘social contract’: long-term care insurance Until the 1980s, older people needed to be of ‘low income’ and ‘without family support’ in order to access public welfare services. The new scheme instead introduced a different concept to the public whereby nursing care was no longer ‘expected’ from the family or ‘allocated’ to those in need by the state (although public provision has been residual), but has become part of a social contract based upon a system of individual contributions and consumer choice (e.g. Hiraoka 2002). Adopting a social insurance model to finance long-term care has successfully increased the level of domiciliary services and improved older people’s access to them (for an explanation of how this scheme plays a part in creating social inequality among individuals and families, see Izuhara 2003b). A policy issue at the heart of funding debates is how the costs of long-term care can be shared between the individual (and the family) and the state. Japan has opted for a social insurance scheme rather than developing any pre-existing tax-based system. Everyone aged 40 and over is expected to contribute,3 and 10 user fees are charged to those who use the services across the board (with some subsidies for benefit claimants). I chose a few points here for discussion. The first point is the change in the public–private divide in care delivery. In Japan, only a minority of people are cared for in institutions despite the expansion of nursing homes and care facilities introduced under the series of Gold Plans. The focus of LTCI was directed towards strengthening home care services instead of extending costly institutional options. As part of the wider socialization of care provision to substitute for and complement care provided by families, a market approach was introduced. This is a shift away from the existing division of care delivery. Previously, home care had been provided informally by family members with limited services by municipalities, while institutional care had been predominantly provided by municipalities and non-profit organizations called shakai fukushi hojin (social welfare corporation). The role of social welfare corporations as sub-contractors of the public sector has been mainly in providing institutional care. The difference between social welfare corporations and, for example, voluntary organizations in Britain is the restriction of the former to provide only services, the type and range being defined by law. Social welfare corporations require approval by the government to operate homes for older people, and in return receive substantial tax incentives. In order to fill the gap, locally based groups and organizations have emerged and have started providing welfare services such as meal delivery and home help beyond the formally defined categories over the last thirty years. One of the aims of the LTCI is therefore to develop the role of such (both for-profit and non-profit) service providers to fill the gap vacated by the family and achieve a greater mix of welfare providers. An expansion of service providers would in theory result in greater competition among providers and thus a reduction of prices, but it would also result in an increase in the amount and quality of services. Given the restrictions under the scheme however, the current system can instead be described as
Changing families and policy responses 169 ‘quasi-market’, since both non-profit and for-profit organizations are encouraged to provide services and the government intervenes to regulate the market (Hiraoka 2002). There is however little evidence to suggest whether or not greater competition among providers has resulted in enhanced quality of services or in increased efficiency. Second, under the previous system, access to welfare services and facilities had been divided according to the means and availability of family resources. For those who could not remain at home for various reasons, publicly-funded homes existed for those people below the poverty line. These were scarce, of poor quality and admission was means tested. Thus, inevitably, a stigma was attached to older people who moved into such institutions. On the other hand, middle to highincome elders who could not or did not want to rely on their children needed to purchase their own services both at home and in luxury purpose-built housing. Hospitals have been alternative institutions for the majority of people. In Japan the gap between the public provision of care services and facilities and the informal care provided by the family has been filled by medical institutions. As Figure 10.3 indicates, more than a third of single-elderly households in the mid-1990s expressed a preference to receive ‘nursing care’ in hospital, and
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similar views were also expressed by those in co-residency on top of the obviously high expectations of family support. Tackling ‘social hospitalization’ was thus one of the main aims of the LTCI given the increasing costs of health care. Hospitals are now divided into various types, and ‘long-term care oriented’ hospitals have more nurses and care staff and fewer medical doctors to keep their costs low. Apart from the emphasis on home care, a new type of nursing home was also planned in response to such emerging needs. The idea behind the project is similar to the British approach of separating the costs of accommodation and living costs from personal and nursing care. Accommodation costs would be charged to new residents after means testing. In terms of home care, creating a single market is perhaps more equitable to all users. This is evident when looking at Britain where the public and private divide has widened regarding the quality of services due partly to inadequate public funding and residential care services. As Land (2001: 64) argues, under such an approach, there is ‘a danger that the increasing emphasis on “targeted” services based on an assessment of means rather than need more broadly defined, will result in services in which only the poor will have an interest’. Within such a twotier system of public and private services, the public services become second class and those who use them and work in them feel like second-class citizens. The LTCI objective of ‘equal services for equal needs’ in a single market with a mixture of for-profit and non-profit providers appears to have achieved greater equality and equity among users regardless of their financial means and family circumstances. Third, securing human resources in such a service-intensive industry is a major issue. Due to their current poor working conditions and low wages, the industry tends to attract the ‘residual’ labour force of households (often wives who are married to a principal breadwinner). This system works hand-in-hand with the existing ‘family-as-a-unit’ social security systems (Kumazawa 2000; Osawa 1993). This is likely to create a new gender-biased labour market in an increasingly casualized labour market. The availability of human resources also differs across regions, which is linked to the geographical mobility of younger generations and also to the erosion of the capacity of the family to provide support. The changing balance between institutional care and home care is one of the key indicators used to assess the successful implementation of the scheme. According to Hirano (2002), wide regional variations and characteristics have been observed. On average, the ratio of older people who receive services at institutions to those who receive them at home is currently 1: 2 (32.3 per cent, 67.7 per cent). This ratio is however reversed when the costs of services (63.7 per cent and 36.3 per cent respectively) are measured since the price of institutional care is usually higher than that of home care and also a budget ceiling is applied for individuals to receive home care. One of the concerns about the scheme is the uneven distribution of care facilities across the country, which results in a shortage of such facilities, both public and private, in some regions, especially in rural areas. On the other hand, in prefectures such as Iwate (northern, rural), due to the scarce resources of home care the ratio of people receiving care in institutions is higher than in other regions.
Changing families and policy responses 171 Changing family relations under LTCI4 Long-Term Care Insurance was introduced so that caring responsibilities would no longer rest solely on the family (approximately 240,000 women were caring for bed-bound older relatives in 1998) but be shared in society among a variety of new providers. The scheme has thus successfully expanded the number of services and providers, and begun to include a much wider section of society as recipients, especially those who used to be excluded from public services due to their financial and family circumstances. For example, before LTCI it was commonly understood that if an older person required twenty-four-hour private home help services, only very high-income individuals and families were able to bear the costs fully out of their own pocket. Today, older people who have sufficient income including a high level of occupational pensions and assets can also enjoy a better quality of life with formal services (not necessarily nursing care but also practical support such as shopping, cooking and cleaning) at minimum financial cost. Indeed, peoples’ needs vary significantly and the level to which the scheme improves individuals’ quality of life may be subjective. The disadvantages of the non-means tested approach however, as Ikegami and Campbell (2002) have argued, ‘include the “waste” of resources or “dead-weight cost” of covering people who could rely on their own funds or family without public support’. The steady expansion of applications over the first three years can be viewed as an explanation for the successful ‘socialization of care’. The scheme has significantly benefited those people who had care needs and applied for services, while the life experiences of some others have remained unchanged. The following examples highlight contrasting cases of service users and non-users with fairly similar needs. In both cases, older couples required regular visits to clinics (although the service user had a poor heart condition): We will support each other until we die. We go out everywhere, shopping and hospitals, together. Otherwise what happens if one falls? We hold hands when we walk up a hill . . . I have no thought about using LTCI. We don’t want to rely on public welfare. We would rather help each other . . . Because I don’t drive, we always have to walk. When we went to hospital yesterday, we took a taxi one way and walked back. It took us an hour and a half. It’s hard work – we walked little and needed to rest, walk a little again and rested . . . I’ve heard about a ‘care taxi’ but I don’t know how to apply for it. A taxi one way cost us ¥910, that’s why we could not afford both ways . . . When we step out of our front door, there is always a cost. (male, 83 non-user) The care taxi picks me up twice a week to go to a clinic. We thought LTCI was only for those bed-bound people. We had no clue because nobody seemed to know about the details. But when I got ill last time, my [co-resident] daughter was told by a mother of her student that we could apply for the services even though we were not bed-bound . . . My husband used to drive me to the clinic, so his burden has been lifted. My daughter was concerned
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Misa Izuhara about him as much as about me, and I also wanted him not to be burdened. He used to wait in the car while I was in the clinic. The waiting room is often very busy so he waited in the car. He could not leave the car in case I finished early. So I decided to apply for the service partly for him. Now it costs me only ¥218 one way – it costs more than ¥900 if I use an ordinary taxi. (female, 71 service user)
For the latter informant, the use of LTCI has resulted effectively in a reduction of not only the costs of transportation, but also a reduction of the burden of family care. The lack of needs is however not the sole reason for those who are currently not using the services. The lack of information regarding the process and eligibility of the scheme and stigma attached to the user of ‘public welfare’ are also major barriers for older people to access LTCI services (the lack of funds may additionally limit the level of services received). For older people, beside hospitals and clinics, adult children often play a vital point of contact to the wider society. The household survey by the Institute for Research on Household Economics (2002) also confirmed this point that older households who had frequent contacts with their children were more likely to use LTCI services. In societies such as Britain where the concept of rights are more fully developed, either through contributions via tax or national insurance, people feel that they have the right to access services which they had paid for through one or an other system (Plant 2001). For current older Japanese, although rights to public pensions and health care have been fully developed, to some older people’s minds it is still difficult to remove the stigma previously attached to the old ‘public welfare’ and its implication of an unfulfilled family obligation. For some, there are difficulties in adjusting to a new social environment for receiving care, since allowing strangers to come to their house to provide personal and nursing care through physical contact may still be a challenge. A generational gap certainly exists since to a large extent the system is welcomed by the younger generation who prefer to shift their responsibility to the state: Long-term care insurance? I don’t want to be looked after by the state. Does not everyone say so? In fact, if you became poorly and unable to think straight, the family is the one who wants to use such a scheme. It is not the person who needs care that decides, but the family. (female, 76 non-user) The reason behind the popularity of day services is that it provides family members respite care. There were cases even in the snow, where a daughter-in-law insisted her father-in-law go to a day centre. Even if he was coughing, she put a woolly hat on him and pushed his wheelchair outside to be picked up. Co-resident families are the ones who use the services eagerly. In this sense, the social norm has shifted, especially among younger people. (City official)
Changing families and policy responses 173 Another important reform is that care work which used to be conducted by family members free of charge has now become something with a monetary value. Such a shift from unpaid to paid work has not, however, been granted to everyone across the board. Indeed, whether or not the new scheme would reward family carers was one important area of concern in the planning process (Masuda 2001), and the decision not to offer a cash payment to family carers made the Japanese scheme different from the German model.5 The reasons against rewarding family carers were – a cash allowance would continue to tie women to a caring role, it would prevent the expansion of services and providers and thus limit consumer choice if many people chose cash benefits and formal carers were able to provide better care than families. In fact, with the introduction of a free-market approach, care tasks have been significantly ‘commodified’. Despite positive motivations based on love and affection of family carers, this policy is likely to divide ‘traditional’ families and their ‘liberal’ counterparts regarding cost implications. This is a paradox of the system. For instance, if personal care was carried out by a co-resident daughter-in-law it is still regarded as unpaid work under the scheme and there would be the opportunity cost of her paid work in the formal sector to consider as well. However, if the daughter-in-law went to a two-week training course, received the qualification and cared for her neighbours, and if her elderly mother-in-law started receiving formal services under the LTCI, both instances of care work would be realized as paid work with a small co-payment falling on the elderly mother. Older people’s expectations of receiving care from their adult children are, however, diminishing. Older people are often aware that relying entirely on family support is no longer practical or realistic partly due to other competing tasks of the younger generation as well as the increased economic independence of older people themselves. Today older people see caring responsibility largely as paid work: Provision of care should be done professionally, and my daughters can help us with other things such as the paper work. Although they are our own children, it is impossible to ask them to care for us. Impossible, indeed. They have their own family, that’s why we have reservations. I would feel bad otherwise [the couple receive home help both mornings and afternoons six days a week]. (female, 82 service user) Society has changed and everybody has a job now. If my children are willing to look after me, I will let them. But it’s easy to ask for public home help since it will be easy to set a boundary. I would expect children to do things in a certain way and may feel frustrated if they don’t respond to my needs. (female, 77 non-user) Sympathy expressed towards children provides a strong rationale for the new scheme. However, it also contradicts the reality of ‘formalized’ caregivers since the majority of registered carers are in fact middle-aged women, often married and with children, and some of whom may be working at the cost of sacrificing
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their own family. And the types of home help services provided are often domestic work (shopping, cooking and cleaning) which many people perform on a daily basis at home without qualifications. There was one unique case of an older woman who took full advantage of the scheme and maximized her quality of life. Two areas in which she was able to gain were rewarding her family carer and being able to justify her non-traditional choice of carer. She was co-residing with her eldest son and his wife. Traditionally, the daughter-in-law is expected to provide care, but her daughter who was a qualified home help and lived next door to her was providing help under the LTCI. She exercised her rights fully and transformed the normative practice to a new form of care arrangement: [If the scheme was not in place] I would not have asked my daughter-in-law to look after me. I wouldn’t feel comfortable anyway. If I had become bed-ridden, I would have moved to private supportive housing . . . Now my own daughter comes to help me. She does laundry, cleaning my two rooms and occasionally picks up my dry cleaning. If I had to ask strangers to come in, it would have been different. I don’t like strangers to look around my house, and in that case, I would have had to be very careful where I placed my valuables . . . Now because my daughter comes as a job, my daughter-in-law would not feel upset. If my daughter comes and chats with me all the time, my daughter-in-law would not feel good about it. Don’t you think so? But if she comes officially as home help, it’s all right if she stays for an hour or two. It is because she comes as a job. For me, it’s perfect. (female, 86 service user)
Concluding comments At the turn of the new century, family structures have diversified considerably. Despite various policy attempts to preserve the structure and function of the family, the breakdown of customary arrangements has begun in earnest. Apart from the constraints exhibited by the younger generation, older people are also becoming more independent with increased levels of income, assets and social security. Maintaining the ‘generational contract’ and relying on family support is therefore no longer their only or often the most desirable option. The major policy response in this area has been the introduction of the Long-Term Care Insurance. There is a clear shift away from targeted provision of welfare services to universal provision (although contributory) according to needs arising from people’s physical and mental disabilities instead of their income, their assets or the availability of family support. However, the family–state boundary is still contested and the position of family carers needs further review under the scheme.
Notes 1 Under the 2004 reforms, couples who divorce after April 2007 will be able to split the rights to the earnings-related portion of the husband’s pension that accrued during their
Changing families and policy responses 175
2
3
4
5
marriage. The intention of the reforms is to provide financial security to divorced women in later life but the full promotion of equal opportunity and status in employment for women still remains a contentious issue. For example, home help services would only be about one-fifth the level in Denmark. Also, total spending on all these community-based services was only about a quarter of the long-term hospitalization costs of bed-bound elders (Asahi Shinbun 30 December 1989). Two separate premium systems include category I (those aged 65 and older who receive pensions) and category II (those aged between 40 and 64 who are members of health insurance schemes. Depending on their employment/dependency status, the premium is added to their health insurance premiums). Empirical evidence was drawn from fieldwork conducted in one of twelve large cities in Japan in 2002 as part of a broader research project on intergenerational relations, supported by the Economic and Social Research Council (R000223717). Information was obtained through in-depth interviews with 23 older people. The prospective informants were identified through purposive sampling based on the selection criteria of those who: (1) were aged between 70 and 86, (2) had children and (3) were or had been homeowners. All interviews with older people took place in their own home by the author. Of the 23 informants, 8 people were receiving formal services under LTCI at the time of interview. Under the German scheme, qualified insurers can receive benefit cash or in kind, and thus the family carer can be rewarded.
References Finch, J. (1989) Family Obligations and Social Change, London: Polity Press. Fox Harding, L. (1996) Family, State and Social Policy, Basingstoke: Macmillan. Gittins, D. (1993) The Family in Question: Changing Households and Familiar Ideologies, Basingstoke: Macmillan. Hashimoto, A. (1993) ‘Family Relations in Later Life: A Cross-cultural Perspective’, Generations, Winter: 24–26. Hayashi, F., Ando, A., and Ferris, R. (1988) ‘Life Cycle and Bequest Savings: A Study of Japanese and US Households Based on Data from the 1984 NSFIE and the 1983 Survey of Consumer Finances’, Journal of the Japanese and International Economies, 2 (4): 450–491. Hirano, T. (2002) ‘Jichitai seisaku hyoka shien to kaigo hoken jigyo jisseki no jisseki hyoka’ (Supporting municipal policy evaluation and evaluating the impact of long-term care insurance)’, in Kiso jichitai ni okeru kaigo hoken seido no koritsu-teki unyo to seisaku sentaku no hyoka kijun ni kansuru hikaku kenkyu sogo hokoku-sho. Report for the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare research grant, pp. 56–76. Hiraoka, K. (2002) ‘Kaigo service chijo no jokyo’ (Situation in the care service market), in Kaigo service kyokyu system no sai-hensei no seika ni kansuru hyoka kenkyu. Report for the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare research grant. Ikegami, N. (1997) ‘Public Long-term Care Insurance in Japan’, Journal of the American Medical Association, 278 (16): 1310–1314. Ikegami, N. and Campbell, J. C. (2002) ‘Choices, Policy Logics and Problems in the Design of Long-term Care Systems’, Social Policy & Administration, 36 (7): 719–734. Institute for Research on Household Economics (2002) Kaigo Hoken Donyu-go no Kaigo Hiyo to Kakei (Cost of Care and Household Economy after the Introduction of Long-Term Care Insurance), Tokyo: Institute for Research on Household Economics.
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Izuhara, M. (2003a) ‘Ageing and intergenerational relations in Japan’, in M. Izuhara (ed.) Comparing Social Policies: Exploring New Perspectives in Britain and Japan, Bristol: The Policy Press, pp. 73–94. —— (2003b) ‘Social Inequality Under a New Social Contract: Long-term Care in Japan’, Social Policy & Administration, 37 (4): 395–410. Kumazawa, M. (2000) Josei Rodo to Kigyo Shakai (Female Labour Force and Company Society), Tokyo: Iwanami. Land, H. (2001) ‘Future expectations of care in old age’, in J. Robinson (ed.) Towards a New Social Compact for Care in Old Age, London: King’s Fund Publishing. Management and Coordination Agency. (2000) Kokusei Chosa (Population Census), Tokyo, Bureau of Statistics. Masuda, M. (2001) ‘Kaigo hoken seido no seisaku keisei katei no tokucho to kadai: kanryo soshiki ni okeru seisaku keisei katei no jirei (Characteristics and Issues of the Policymaking Process for the Long-term Care Insurance System: A Case in the Japanese Bureaucracy)’, The Quarterly of Social Security Research, 37 (1): 44–58. Ministry of Health and Welfare (1998) Heisei 10-nendo Kosei Hakusho (1998 White Paper on Health and Welfare), Tokyo, Gyosei. —— (2000) White Paper on Health and Welfare, Tokyo, Gyosei. Ogasawara, Y., Hashimoto, Y., and Asano, H. (eds) (1997) Koreisha fukushi (Welfare for Older People), Tokyo: Yuhikaku. Ogawa, N. and Retherford, R. D. (1997) ‘Shifting Costs of Caring for the Elderly Back to Families in Japan: Will it Work?’, Population and Development Review, 23 (1) March: 59–94. Osawa, M. (1993) Kigyo Chusin Shakai wo Koete: gendai Nihon wo gendaa de yomu (Beyond the Corporate-Centred Society: Examining Modern Japan from Gender Perspectives), Tokyo: Jiji Press. Peng, I. (2002) ‘Social Care in Crisis: Gender, Demography, and Welfare State Restructuring in Japan’, Social Politics, 9 (3): 411–443. Plant, R. (2001) ‘Rights and responsibilities in long-term care’, in J. Robinson (ed.) Towards a New Social Compact for Care in Old Age, London: King’s Fund Publishing, pp. 29–45. Wilson, G. (2000) Understanding Old Age: Critical and global perspectives, London: Sage.
11 Different paths to welfare Family transformations, the production of welfare, and future prospects for social care in Italy and Japan Rossana Trifiletti Conceptual introduction and background debate In this chapter I reflect on some surprising similarities between certain features of the welfare regimes of Japan and Italy. A large body of work has identified Italy, along with other Southern European countries, as constituting a specific type of welfare regime. I also aim to demonstrate how, despite the apparent similarities between Japan and Italy, the spirit of their welfare programmes, and above all, their probable evolution, are actually quite different, with the possible exception of the important role of the family in the autonomous production of welfare. The comparison between Italy, which is considered one of the more characteristic and generally more developed countries in Mediterranean Europe (Esping-Andersen 1999, Ferrera 1996), and Japan, which appears as the purest representation of the hypothesized Pacific (Jones 1993) or East Asian Welfare model (Kwon 1997, White and Goodman 1998) will have broader implications than just a comparison of two individual countries. As ‘typical’ models for their respective regions, the comparison may therefore be useful in terms of the construction of typologies. This comparison is fairly rudimentary, based on general observations. While more in-depth study is clearly in order, I believe that this initial exercise in comparison is still worthwhile because it questions certain categories and models that have been gaining currency in the international debate yet are often applied too loosely – sometimes in a profoundly ethnocentric way – especially in the Anglo-Saxon world. The most significant category in which Italy and Japan are usually placed together is that of ‘familialist’ welfare states, regarded as somewhat backward compared to other models (Esping-Andersen 1996, 1999). It is not completely clear, however, what exactly is meant here by ‘familialist’, and the term should be analysed and discussed more systematically. The starting point for this discussion is the well-known typology of welfare state models proposed by Esping-Andersen (1990). In his typology, he distinguished between two ‘pure’ polar types, the Social Democratic welfare regime – based on the universalism of social rights – and the liberal welfare regime – based on means-tested assistance and modest flat-rate transfers or insurance plans. Between these two extremes fell a third type,
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the conservative corporatist regime. Both Italy and Japan would appear to belong to the latter, being seen as similar to the Bismarckian model in their very formulations, and presenting a medium level of decommodification, that is, the effects of social policy leave people relatively sheltered from the constraints of the market. In addition, countries in this cluster tend to protect the traditional family and its capacity to take care of itself without outside intervention, as well as enable informal assistance networks to function independently. Most of the criticisms and calls for a revision of Esping-Andersen’s model in terms of where to place individual countries were aimed specifically at the intermediate, conservative corporatist cluster. More specifically, despite the similar level of decommodification found in all countries, France, the Netherlands and Finland were described as very different from Germany, the model country for the conservative corporatist type. At least, that was the impression given by the data from the 1980s, on which Esping-Andersen’s calculations are based. Interestingly, the unique character of each of those countries became most pronounced from the 1990s onward. In the mid-1990s, many researchers proposed that Southern European countries should together be regarded as a fourth and distinct type of welfare regime (Castles and Mitchell 1991, Ferrera 1996, Kosonen 1992, Leibfried 1993, Moreno 2000), to be added to the ‘classic’ three-regime model. Southern European countries fit together by virtue of their very generous, universal coverage for health protection, their work-based pensions and their relatively late development of a rather minimal system of social assistance. The implications of revising the ‘three’ regimes into ‘four’, are crucial for our comparison since they pose the problem as to the correct mode of describing the complex interrelations between state (market) and families, the image of the ‘average’ family inherent in social policies, and, relatedly, what these policies implicitly say about the treatment of women. We will return later to this discussion in the light of our comparison of the two countries. There is no doubt that both Italy and Japan are located in the intermediate conservative corporatist cluster of welfare regimes, if we measure how far income support schemes (old-age pensions, unemployment and sickness benefits) protect individuals from the logic of the market.1 However, both countries have clear leanings towards the liberal cluster. Indeed, certain quantitative differences between Italy and the United Kingdom (liberal regime) are smaller than those between Italy and Germany, both characterized as conservative corporatist. These differences have led to the suggestion that both Italy and Japan should be assigned an intermediate characterization falling somewhere between the two types. Some elements of the Japan/Italy comparison do appear intriguing though, at least from a cultural point of view. For example, there is the idea that ‘the powerful presence of Confucian teaching through Japanese social policy is a functional equivalent of Catholic familialism’ (Esping-Andersen 1999: 82). There may indeed be general similarities between the doctrine of subsidiarity and the Meiji principle of state intervention only in extreme cases (Goodman 2000: 19), a principle later reformulated in the nationalist idea of a Japanese-style welfare society (Thranhardt 1999). However, nobody in present day Italy carries out their
Different paths to welfare 179 everyday life in reference to what a Pope wrote in an Encyclical almost two centuries ago, and it is probably no more likely that the Japanese refer to ie bonds for their own present day behaviour (Izuhara 2000, Ochiai 1997). National governments and local authorities certainly do not act on the basis of such considerations either. In both countries the subsidiarity doctrine or the absence of state invention in certain areas has been used as ex–post legitimization of policy actions taken for other reasons. This legitimization has, however, been different in the two countries. Most scholars agree that in Japan, the long period of rule by the LDP (Liberal Democratic Party) gave rise to an explicit manifestation of this theme, especially after the period of retrenchment following the oil shock. In Italy, on the other hand, the doctrine of subsidiarity became an explicit premise for the character of social policy only much more recently, after the passage from the First to the Second Republic and more clearly after 1994, with the centre-right governments. Prior to that, there was instead simply a tradition of non-interference in specific areas, which in effect left families to their own devices to shoulder the enormous burden of providing assistance to family members and redistributing resources, without any particular public support, and, indeed, without even public recognition of that role: a strange form of subsidiarity, even a ‘punitive’ one, we could say. This approach was taken in Italy for a specific reason, namely, the difficulty of treating the family as a political issue, given the embarrassing associations that could be made with the pro-natalist familism of the Fascist regime. Indeed it is understandable why all the political parties in Italy have been reluctant to tackle family policies, given the overwhelming presence of the Catholic Church. Familyrelated themes have always been uniquely divisive and slippery to deal with, not least because of the participation of Catholic politicians in many different parties. Debates on family policy have always mobilized competing ideologies, fragmenting coalitions and regularly lead up to the government’s downfall. The Japanese equivalent to confronting such delicate issues might be found in pro-natalist measures like the ‘Sam campaign’ (Roberts 2002), where increased family size is carefully pitched as a ‘modern’ choice of egalitarian couples. However, unlike Italy, Japan does not suffer similar political embarrassment regarding pro-natalist themes. Nevertheless, in both countries, state-based welfare is demanded and provided in order to protect families from the risks which they cannot handle alone, or that compromise their functioning. One thinks, for example, of the passion citizens have regarding the protection of their health: in Italy – discussions about the defects of the National Health System are endless – and in Japan, the pride in their excellent state of health (Oberländer 2003: 87) is quite understandable.2 The relative generosity of widow’s pensions should also be mentioned. These programmes were developed early in the history of welfare states, and should be understood as measures to protect families stricken by death. These benefits seem quite different in spirit from those derived benefits granted to the wives of workers or the unemployed in pure male breadwinner regimes (which, in fact, Japan introduced later).
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In neither Japan nor Italy has the state ever spent money in order to keep women in the home, as has been done in Germany and Austria (for example, even from a different angle, the German Long Term Care Insurance plan discussed in Izuhara’s Chapter 10 in this volume). The European Fordist countries developed a social compromise in the period after the second world war which ‘rediscovered’ the housewife (Crouch 1999) within the spirit of social policies. The caring homemaker of the mass blue-collar worker, however, should not be confused with the traditional subordinate feminine role from centuries ago, even though in the Japanese case there may be some connection. The real cultural flavour of the two welfare systems, and the tacit image of family embedded in social policies comes rather, through a different connection between state support and family attitudes, something we should be more careful about calling ‘familism’. What Japanese and Italian people desire and try to get from welfare support for their daily lives, has no reference to Catholicism or Confucianism. They are able to act in either traditional or innovative ways or – more frequently – some mixture of the two, depending on different situations. For example, it is unclear whether the spirit of the Japanese welfare regime stems from the Meiji Neo-Confucian restoration or goes back as far as the ijhi Buddhist social orientation (Goodman 2000: 16). The latter version definitely tends to emphasize more traditional and solid cultural foundations, completely independent of the influence exercised by the West (Thranhardt 1999). In my opinion we should be suspicious of over-ambitious and under-contextualized historical leaps in time.3 This kind of cultural exercise bears a similarity to what was called the ‘samuraization’ of Japanese development (Befu 1981, cited in Goodman 1998: 150), that is, the invention of a tradition. If we are trying to grasp how changes in the family are caused and/or how they may bring about social policy innovations, it seems to me that we have to adopt a more pragmatic point of view. In fact, if there is anything to be learned from the experience of classical sociologists, it is that examining social change with a rudimentary concept of the family may produce very misleading results. In this connection, if we take for granted the impact of changes in the status of women, or simply add further analysis of family themes, our findings can be very ambiguous and sometimes even frankly misleading when projected onto the background of a supposed traditional familialism, which has remained unchanged for centuries. In my opinion, this happens because there is still no real consensus on the meaning of defamilialization, a concept that is often used across a wide range of situations and with important shifts in meaning. In its original meaning (Knijn and Kremer 1997, McLaughlin and Glendinning 1994) it simply denotes that access to social protection is not mediated by one’s family position. Often, on the contrary, it is interpreted as a consequence of the individualization of social rights on the family as an institution. This is undoubtedly true for Nordic or Anglo-Saxon countries, where this transformation is quite visible, but we should not assume that a similar disorganization of the family applies across the board. In Southern European countries, in fact, just like in Japan, individualization in the family is still imperfect (see Bettio, Chapter 4, this volume). This, however,
Different paths to welfare 181 should not tempt us to revive, albeit in a weaker form, old positions on the traditional culture of Mediterranean familism in which ‘familism’ becomes a catch-all concept (e.g. Banfield 1958) reminiscent of the pre-Parsons theory of loss of functions of the family towards the state: if the state claims the function of protecting families, the family will become disorganized, or if the family protects itself, the State will be non-interventionist. This is simply a way to avoid dealing with the actual problems of real families. To me it seems rather that the role of families in Japan and Italy lies in a collective memory of poverty and scarcity that endures even in today’s prosperity. Families are viewed as a storehouse for the resources that are constantly and everywhere depleted. No state ever guaranteed a minimum wage to these families, and the household income was put together in a ‘synthesis of breadcrumbs’, where the main income earned in the regular labour market was supplemented by a range of self-employment activities, self-produced services, self-grown products and so on, through which all the needs of the family members could somehow be met. This accumulation takes place within the family and highlights a function of families which is very different from the classic European male breadwinner model. The model is more like that of a family firm and endorses a very different gender contract (Pfau-Effinger 1999). Here, families themselves pursue collective strategies to ensure that at least one member has a good protected job. In a certain sense, the social protection safety net is stretched precisely because of this: family members do not behave as free egoistic individuals, but rather as links in a network of mutual obligations, embedded in a logic of altruism, the ethics of gift exchange (Bimbi 1992, Godbout 2000). All this is not especially traditional, but simply describes how families try to function in greatly changed conditions. Often, one even sees a slightly schizophrenic quality in the state–family relationship in the sense that obligations to family members, even legal obligations, concern the extended family (Izuhara 2003a: 11, Ogawa and Retherford 1997: 91, Trifiletti 1995), while existing support measures in any shape or form concern the nuclear family, in the modern sense of the word. One consequence of this is that while the state – at least in Mediterranean countries – recognizes and tolerates the absence of civic-mindedness, it turns a blind eye to the over-lapping accumulation of a range of benefits, including up to 2 or 3 categorical pensions per family, since none of them singly would constitute an adequate income. Only by pooling resources do families manage to get by.4 In contrast to the rudimentary formulation of familialism as a crude persisting traditionalism, I am convinced that the idea of a ‘new family spirit’ (AttiasDonfut et al. 2002) could better explain why inter-generational ties are becoming more, and not less important in increasingly unstable families where couples are ever more fragile. I believe we are probably witnessing an entirely new way to redefine apparently traditional behaviours in contemporary ways (cf. Bettio and Villa 1993). For Mediterranean countries, at least, ‘adding the family to the analysis’ in the reductionist fashion sometimes adopted by welfare state scholars, often results in truncated efforts to adequately grasp and explain behaviour. Scholars often conclude that traditional practices are so persistent and so long-standing
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that little hope remains for any change in the status quo. Fortunately, reality is far more complex and differentiated and it is highly likely that the same is true for Japan.
A comparison between the Italian and Japanese welfare regimes as a whole In the light of what has been said , it would be useful to examine more closely the similarities and differences between Italy’s welfare regime and that of Japan. This comparison will then provide the framework for our more detailed analysis of child care and care of the elderly in both countries over the last few years. In both countries, the pension system is of paramount importance in illustrating the general orientation of the two welfare systems. One similarity of the pension systems in Italy and Japan is their historic development by ‘additive universalism’ (Döring et al. 1992),5 that is they have both reached almost universal coverage through the constant addition of different categories of protection to a very differentiated social security system. A second similarity is that they are both very generous. The only difference is that in Italy expenses are covered by the state budget, whereas in Japan Mutual Aid Associations and occupational funds have played an important role.6 Although the level of welfare expenditure is different, the percentage of expenditure for pensions in general, and old age pensions in particular, relative to social expenditure in Japan is exceptionally high (Campbell 1992, Noguchi 1986). This is also the case for Italy, the only EU country where pensions expenditure alone reached almost 15 per cent of the GNP in the year 2000 (Eurostat 2003).7 Nevertheless, to keep things in perspective, it is important to remember that at least until 1975, total social spending in Japan was around 2 per cent of the GNP. This increased four-fold in the 1980s, and in 2000 total social spending amounted to 14.5 per cent of GDP (90 per cent of all social spending went on pensions and health). Such generosity towards the elderly in these two countries is also accompanied by widespread home ownership; it is not, as in other developed countries, a replacement for home ownership (Castles and Ferrera 1996, cf. Izuhara 2000). In Japan, this is the result of housing policies that privileged the middle class during post-war reconstruction (Hirayama 2003). In Italy, it is more the outcome of longstanding practices of private savings and wealth accumulation, as well as the high number of illegally constructed homes (especially in the South), which were subsequently legitimized by amnesty. Italian tax breaks on mortgages are a relatively recent incentive that has become common only in the past few decades. In any case, both the segmentation of pensions and the grounding of family security in home ownership are clearly involved with the family, where social goods, in fact, have been redistributed between genders and across generations. In Italy, for instance, it is very clear that the prolonged presence of adult-children in the family home, the so-called ‘long family’, and the long-term unemployment of young people have been possible thanks to the generous pensions revenue that the current generation of elderly people (for the first time having made contributions
Different paths to welfare 183 for their entire working lives) often add to the family budget.8 A similar tendency of comfortable pensions has also emerged in Japan for this first generation of elderly people who, as happens everywhere, prefer to support themselves independently of the income of their children.9 As in Mediterranean countries, a new model is clearly emerging in which the older generation compensates by inter-vivos transfers even if housing assets are not equally distributed among children, giving much more to the younger one than it receives from them (Izuhara 2003b, cf. Attias-Donfut et al. 2002). In fact a similar way of resolving market-based inequalities in social protection between large and small firms, through transfers within the family is already at work in Japan. It is only the family which ‘can redistribute the benefits from insiders to outsiders’ (Gough 2003: 31). Despite this basic similarity, there is a difference between the two cases as regards the unemployment rate and, more generally, the overall degree of inequality among social classes in the two societies. Although neither Italy nor Japan possess a proper system of social shock absorbers, and the compensation rate of unemployment benefits is very low in both countries (Esping-Andersen 1999, table 2.2), their impact differs. Indeed, Japan, until recently could very well do without such a system, since it ‘tended to have very little or no unemployment’ (Holliday 2000: 717). This highlights a fundamental difference between the two welfare systems: Japan, at least until recently, could probably be correctly defined as a prototype of productivist or perhaps developmental welfare capitalism, a system which subordinates social policy to other policy objectives, especially the paramount objective of economic growth (ibid.: 708). In a way, this could serve the function of guaranteeing redistribution by other means, ‘shouldering the function of social security’ by full employment (Uzuhashi 2001). In other words, they ‘get around’ the need for a more comprehensive system of social security by fostering economic growth (Gough 2003). In contrast, Italy, though strongly interventionist in the economy, has fought double-digit unemployment rates for decades, and produces more inequality and poverty and notably more child poverty (Saraceno 2002, cf. Ozawa and Kono 1997). A corollary of this difference is the greater degree of flexibility in labour market regulations in Japan, and the more limited role of the state with respect to social partners – for the most part, labour market measures are regulatory policies (Kwon 1997). These characteristics place Japan’s experience much closer to that of countries with a liberal welfare regime. Nevertheless, in both countries, young people, women, and less productive late middle-aged workers (pre-pensioners older than fifty years of age), are most likely to be excluded from the central, most protected sectors of the labour market (Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare 2002a: 35). In the case of women, however, Japan and Italy seem to display nearly opposite dynamics. In Japan, women appear to be underemployed with respect to their qualifications, confined to the ippanshoku jobs, usually in part-time occupations (see Rebick, Chapter 5, this volume). They tend to be excluded from higher level professional jobs, with prospects for mobility and training opportunities (sogoshoku employment) in part because of a tax deduction which discourages work over a certain income, a
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classic male breadwinner measure (Gottfried and O’ Reilly 2002, Oishi 2002). Mothers with young children under the age of three still typically leave the labour market. In contrast, Italian women have access to the labour market only if they are highly qualified and willing to work according to the ‘male’ model of employment: full-time, with no concessions to facilitate the reconciliation of paid employment and caregiving responsibilities. The exhaustion and fatigue of shouldering this double burden is evident in Italian women’s premature exit from the labour market.10 Indeed, while employment activity rates for Japanese women still follow the typical ‘M’ shaped curve, those of Italian women have not been that way for more than twenty years. Although work and family intersect quite differently in the two countries, the results are the same: delayed childbirth and falling fertility rates. In the Italian case, the ‘family enterprise’ invests, to a certain extent, in the careers of young mothers by supporting them through child care (usually as long as there is only one child). In Japan, however, young women interested in having careers usually postpone or renounce marriage altogether (Ozawa and Kono 1997: 311, Peng 2000). Consequently, the Italian decline in fertility is usually associated with abandoning the idea of a second child, though nearly all families try to have at least one. In Japan, on the other hand, there is a greater divide between those who choose to have a family and a more ‘normal’ fertility rate, and those who renounce (Goodman 2002: 13) or, even more likely, repeatedly postpone child bearing. Because of these patterns, there is a much greater difference in Japan between the fertility rates of active versus inactive women than there is in Italy. Finally, the fact that Japanese women have a much greater presence in the labour market (64.9 per cent of women are active against 46.3 per cent in Italy in 2000, Eurostat 2001 and Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare 2002b)11 is another example, if you will, of how inadequate ‘tradition’ is as an explanation for women’s employment patterns. On the contrary, they appear to stem more from the specific ‘pathways’ or trajectories in which women get stuck. The other basic similarity between Japan and Italy is in labour market segmentation that is reflected in the categorical nature of the pensions. The deep divide between large and small firms in Japan in some ways corresponds to the divide between central and peripheral labour markets in Italy, or to the contrast between Italy’s North and South. In both countries, these divides define two different systems of guarantees for workers, who appear either over-protected (mostly men) or under-protected (mostly women). On the other hand, both countries have been overtaken by the rapid, global transformation of the nature of work, and by the powerful pressures towards Anglo-Saxon flexibilization, both of which bring their historical forms of integration up again (Dore 2000). The flexibilization of the labour market with the development of non-standard jobs involves mostly women and young people in both countries (Kosugi 2002, Trifiletti 2003). This can only increase the compensatory role of families, where increasingly uncertain earnings are put together with more guaranteed incomes and good pensions. There are two obvious differences: first, in Italy the secondary labour market coincides much more with the black economy, which may lead to clientelistic
Different paths to welfare 185 degeneration of the system and second, Japanese employers provide more generous occupational welfare (Gould 1993), and family-friendly policies. The latter feature is something which, together with its highly effective active labour market policies, actually places Japan slightly closer to liberal welfare regimes. The same is true for the fact that notwithstanding its late development of a welfare system, Japan set up a proper social assistance national safety net, with good coverage (Lee 1987), long before Italy or other Southern European countries did. Moreover, the Japanese system appears more coherent overall, as a productivist one, as described earlier, and seems to have extracted from its extraordinary economic development an alternative source of well-being. Clearly the Italian welfare state has also used social policy for economic purposes, but in my opinion, in pursuit of different outcomes: Japan’s regulations which induce employers to contribute to the welfare systems of their own employees seem greatly different from Italy’s episodic use of social shock absorbers to protect vested interests and buffer industrial crises. The last unexpected similarity to be noted is that in both countries, the lack of national welfare provision is complemented by an important and generous series of initiatives at the local level (Samuelson 1983, Thang 2002). This has been commonly described in Italy by the sentence ‘l’universalismo va in periferia’, that is, the universal coverage which is not guaranteed by national laws is de facto substituted with generous services at the local level. All this seems to build a more acceptable basis for comparison than resorting to Confucianism or whatever. The two cases are similar enough in terms of economic development and institutional welfare history to allow us to check these factors and better understand other differences.
Childcare and elderly care in Italy and Japan An in-depth look at the interlocking mechanisms between state, market and family, and hence a more comprehensive picture of the welfare model, would be incomplete without an investigation into the types of personal services offered in the two countries (Anttonen and Sipilä 1996). This is the case not only for the important role they play in filling certain gaps left by the central welfare system, but also because they constitute the most direct interface with the family and its transformations. Moreover, it is no mere coincidence that this is the only area of social policy intervention that currently appears to be developing. It is therefore apparent that we have to bring social care into our comparative analysis in a more serious and systematic way, that goes beyond the borders between formal and informal care (Daly and Lewis 2000): Social care will become increasingly central to the analysis of social policy [. . .] to construct a better understanding of the behaviour of modern welfare states and of the consequences for welfare systems of broader economic and social changes. (Anttonen et al. 2003: 2)
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Elderly care Given that most social care, in all welfare systems, is carried out within families (Daly and Rake 2003) – and that it will probably remain that way – it seems especially important to recognize that there are better and worse ways of integrating it with the institutional welfare services on offer, depending on the cultural connotations that they take on. It is pointless to repeat, as propaganda, the subsidiarity formula if potential carers are faced with a perpetual all-or-nothing choice, rather than help adjusted to their specific needs. Families are offered either full, comprehensive assistance, or none at all. Striking similarities between Italy and Japan can be seen not only in the rapid growth of their elderly populations, but also in the spirit and timing of proposed or adopted measures (cf. Table 11.1): the two Golden Plans in Japan in 1989 and 1995 and Italy’s Progetto Obiettivo Anziani of 1985, which was re-launched in 1992, (in National Health plans, a Project Objective is recognized as a problem that must be addressed with absolute priority) happened almost simultaneously, and the dimensions of the financing effort are almost similar.12 Even the new Japanese Long-Term Care Insurance scheme (LTCI) of 1997 implemented in 2000 (Fukawa 2002, Izuhara, Chapter 10, this volume, Roberts 2002), has a parallel in a much debated proposal by the current Italian Health Minister. Both national plans proposed structural objectives to confront systematically the overwhelming and unevenly distributed burden that ageing has presumably put on their respective health systems, and both have been criticized for their inefficiencies and lack of funding. Ironically, the implementation of the plans in both countries simultaneously had paradoxical outcomes. In Italy, the Elderly Project Objective aimed to solve the problem of extremely fragile or invalid elderly persons being sent home from hospital. These so-called ‘wild hospital discharges’ were spurred by cost-saving efforts following health care reform, which prohibited the improper use of long hospitalizations for individuals whose chief problem is old age-related infirmity. The state proposed the creation of a system of public nursing homes offering sufficient coverage, with legal guarantees on quality (the target coverage set at 2 per cent of the over 65 population) and uniform rules governing the right to access long-term care. In addition, it proposed a parallel system of home care, that would guarantee a similar percentage of coverage. The perverse and completely unexpected outcome, however, was to open the gates for the rapid development of private initiatives, which now provide most coverage for long-term permanent care. In addition, after 25 years the target of 2 per cent coverage for home care has yet to be reached (nor systematically accounted for: see Bettio and Préchal 1998 for alternative, lower estimates). The inadequate coverage in both institutionalized and home care has resulted in a further marketization of care, which has developed exponentially in recent years in invisible ways. By the time public opinion had put a name to the problem, the use of the so-called ‘badanti’, privately paid, round-the-clock minders and aides (most of whom are immigrant women) for severely dependent elderly persons, had reached levels estimated at about 5.4 per cent of the elderly populations (Gori 2002): nearly three times that contributed by all public services for home care. Thus, the underground economy shapes the marketization process.
Different paths to welfare 187 Likewise, the main objectives of Japan’s first Golden Plan were to increase in-home assistance and short stay services,13 to the extent that some commentators described the plan as an attempt at ‘shifting the costs of caring for the elderly back to families’ (Ogawa and Retherford 1997). Among the perverse consequences of this strategy was a huge surge in the improper ‘social hospitalization’ of elderly persons, the instances of which multiplied tenfold (Peng 2003a: 11). This is a long-standing characteristic of the Japanese system (Campbell 1992: 17), which led later to the LTCI as a strategy of cost containment (Shinkawa 2003: 16). Importantly, in these two cases, these undesired outcomes are not simply inexplicable side-effects of policies meant to symbolize ‘position-taking’ (Boling 1998: 194). Instead, they reflect a flaw common to both systems: the policy interventions were undertaken without serious in-depth analysis of the family relations of elderly persons, and they were formulated on the basis of crude and worrisome demographic predictions. Finally, with the involvement of private caregiving entities, long-term caregiving services have proven to be much more profitable in both countries (cf. Izuhara 2003a: 83–84). In Japan, however, it was possible to discuss and remedy the short-comings of the Golden Plans when groups of elderly people and caregivers organized to reclaim the right to the LTCI, a measure covering a broader spectrum and no longer connected to traditional welfare assistance (Peng 2003a,b). This innovative role of public opinion underscores the inadequacy of ‘epochal’ explanations that highlight presumed radical changes in family values that have transformed good inter-generational relationships – explanations that obscure the fact that the overwhelming majority of elderly people, especially highly dependent ones, are supported and assisted by their own daughters and sons. Demographic ‘crises’ and the evolution of a new model of the family It is worthwhile to reflect more deeply on the demographic evolution of the two countries (Tables 11.2 and 11.3), noticing especially some of the important differences. It is clear that demographic ageing started earlier in Italy, and today is much more pronounced than in Japan. At the same time, however, population ageing in Japan has increased at a faster rate, and was concentrated in a relatively brief period, doubling in the twenty-five-year span between 1970 and 1994. Demographic projections based on this trend which estimate the proportion of elderly for the year 2050, are taken quite seriously in that country (though the projections do not vary widely from those estimated for Italy). Of course, the Japanese passion for statistics (Goodman 2002: 9) could be one element explaining the importance of these dire forecasts. However, it is also true that rapid population ageing considered alongside fertility decline – which is just as closely followed by public opinion, and named with some symbolic thresholds like the ‘1.57’ shock (Roberts 2002: 54–55) – has created a particular sense of emergency in public discourse (Goodman 2002: 14). The international English language literature on Japan makes a strikingly frequent and naïve association between the decline of multi-generational families and abandonment of the elderly. Changes in family structure are taken as direct
Table 11.1 Timing of elderly and child-care measures in Italy and Japan Year
Italy Elderly care
1934
Japan Child care
Elderly care
Child allowances only for dependent workers Public ONMI day care centres (welfare of mothers and children)
1937
1947
Child welfare law, Public welfare day, Care centres
1971
Public day care centres 5 years plan (non welfare nature) Compulsory maternity leave, parental leave compensated by 30%
1972
Child allowances for the third child
1983 1985
Child allowances Progetto Obiettivo anziani (for the next 5 years)
1988
Child allowances in fact abolished as such and substituted by an anti-poverty measure for large families
1989 1992
1994
Child care
Child allowances for the second child
Gold plan (for the next 10 years)
Re-launching of the Progetto obiettivo, not implemented Additional benefit for children after the second one, but only to families entitled to the large families benefit (through means testing)
Parental leave (may be divided between spouses) Ratifying the convention on the rights of the child Universal child allowances (under 3) Angel plan (for the next 5 years after 1995) 18 bill. yen for five years
Different paths to welfare 189 Table 11.1 Continued Year
Italy Elderly care
1995
Japan Child care
Elderly care
Ratifying the convention on the rights of the child
Revision of the Gold Plan, more generous funding
1996
1997
1998
Revision of entitlement rights to enter day care Privatization of child-care day centres L. 285 funding experimentations for the next 3⫹3 years 741 billions for the first 3 years Bill (not passed) for building a complex system of child day care services
White paper of MHW about low birthrate
1999
2000
2001 2002
Child care
Parental leave (until the child is 8), fathers are entitled on their own right and can share or divide it. If the father takes more than 3 months the couple get a month ⫹ Law financing workplace daycare centres White paper of MLW about welfare reform
LTCI
Childcare leave paid by 25% New Angel Plan 2000/2004: 449 billions for 2001, 487 for 2002 Law for gender equal society Child allowances (under 6)
Child leave paid at 40%
proof of changes in family relations. From the Italian perspective, where residential proximity between parents and adult-children is the norm, albeit in separate households, and where more than 40 per cent of all adult-children of all ages living outside of their parents’ home report seeing their mother everyday, and
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Table 11.2 Timing of population ageing in Italy and Japan Year
Italy
Year
% of population over age sixty-five 1931 1936 1951 1961 1971 1980 1990 1996 2000 2001 Projected 2010 2050
Japan % of population over age sixty-five
7.3 7.4 8.2 9.5 11.3 13.2 15.3 16.8 18.0 188.2
1930 1940 1950 1960 1970 1980 1990 1995 2000 2001
4.75 4.80 4.94 5.73 7.07 9.10 12.05 14.54 17.34 17.97
20.6 34.4
2010 2050
25.5 35.7
nearly 30 per cent of them phone at least once a day (38 per cent if female)14 (ISTAT 2001), the manipulatory value of these alleged concerns is particularly clear: one cannot really understand why the collapse of family solidarity should be deduced from the decline of three-generation families in Japan, from 19.2 per cent in 1970 to 10.6 per cent in 2000 (Tokyo Foreign Press Center 2002: 18)15 if the proportion of children living with at least one elderly person is constantly much higher. The traditional model is evolving towards re-cohabitation when the needs of the elderly require it, as elsewhere. In any case, the figures are still very high compared to other developed countries (Yamada 1996: 54). In countries with such strong family solidarity as Japan and Italy still have, one gets help, even if one is not living under the same roof, from the richly interwoven network of interrelations which in Italy has been called ‘intimacy at a short distance’. (Cioni 1999, Trifiletti 1998). Moreover, cohabitation may be a perfectly modern family strategy for various aims (Morgan and Hiroshima 1983): in both countries, for instance, cohabiting young mothers have a higher labour force participation rate than non-cohabiting ones. In Italy, however, we have the perfect rhetorical equivalent of the Japanese case. Here, catastrophic predictions of the abandonment of legions of elderly people are also formulated, usually based on measurements reflecting the increase in one-person families. This increase is simply a numerical artefact of the longer average life span, by gender. These ‘quick and dirty’ ideological forecasts of abandonment of the elderly underestimate the fact that most elderly people, especially invalids, are cared for at home.16 Moreover, in Italy, even non co-resident or hospitalized elderly persons receive a significant amount of care from relatives, in order to bridge the distance and to complement and ‘humanize’ what is otherwise an impersonal service. This caregiving is for the most part provided
Different paths to welfare 191 by their children, but, as in Japan, it is as if the state and public opinion see only the cases of abandonment. In both countries, however, although a very large proportion of families do care for their elderly, surprisingly few schemes that really ‘care for the carers’ seem to be promoted, though probably for different reasons.17 It is as if the catastrophic prospect of an ageing society could obscure more real problems in public opinion. In the end, the demographic patterns do not count for very much; they are used to a greater or lesser extent to fuel the climate of emergency that is useful for other purposes, just as the myth of a Japanese-style welfare society has been to justify retrenchment (Campbell 1992: 20, Goodman 1998, Kono 2000). For example, many speak of the ‘women in the middle’ (Peng 2001), the so-called sandwich generation of women carers. This group is made up of women in their fifties who find themselves caught between the caring demands of two generations of dependent relatives: care for their own adult-children or their young grandchildren, and care for their own parents or very old relatives. Once more, one reads into demographic statistics that the elderly tend to have fewer daughters and daughters-in-law available to assist them, and thus deduces more selfish family behaviour on the part of younger generations, something that has yet to be demonstrated empirically. Indeed, in a recent study (Trifiletti et al. 2003) we found that in Southern European countries, a different and more worrying type of over-burdening of caregivers is more likely, tied to the simultaneous phenomena of population ageing and the postponement of childbearing. In countries such as Italy, and, to a lesser extent, Portugal and France, consecutive female cohorts with low birth rates produce a different type of double burden of care, which is even more problematic, though it still concerns a minority. It is no longer so rare to find that the family caregiver for an elderly person, usually the youngest (or only) daughter of late birth of that person, also happened to postpone the creation of her family so long that she finds herself responsible for the care of one or two dependent parents, as well as for that of her own small children. Public care services are completely unprepared to deal with these kind of situations, which demand a tremendous amount of creativity and organization. In Italy, demographic decline, like ageing (perhaps even in a more marked way), is a very gradual process which has long been in motion (see Table 11.3). The beginning of the fertility decline in Italy can be dated from 1910, when a high peak in fertility of 4.88 (high compared with other European countries), was followed by a constant, uniform decline of about half a percentage point every 10 years, up until the 1990s, when the rate stabilized at about 40 per cent below the substitution rate. The significant and widespread social alarm raised by low fertility rates in Japan, where the trend is much more sensitive to period events (see Table 11.3) seems to be the completely understandable reaction to the most recent and sudden fall in fertility, but it is interesting that public opinion in Italy, where fertility rates are even lower, has not mobilized nearly so much with regard to this question. I do not wish to imply that Italians have a more realistic interpretation of demographic indicators, which are only proxies for real phenomena, but, rather, that it is interesting to realize that this is not an issue which carries
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Table 11.3 Timing of the fall in fertility in Italy and Japan Year
Italy
Japan
Total fertility rate
Mother’s age at first birth
Total fertility rate
Mother’s age at first birth
1930 1940 1950 1960 1965
3.59 3.30 2.72 2.51 2.67
NA NA 25.9 (1952) 25.8
NA NA 25.11 25.61 NA
1970 1980 1990
2.43 1.68 1.36
25.1 25.1 26.9
1995 1999 2000 2001 2002
1.19 1.22 1.24 1.23 1.26
28.1 28.0 (1997) NA NA NA
4.72 4.14 3.65 2.00 1.58 shock in 1966 2.13 1.75 1.54 (1.57 shock in 1989) 1.42 1.34 1.36 1.33 1.32
25.82 26.07 27.16 27.76 27.99 28.00 28.03 NA
much currency in political debate and public opinion, for the reasons mentioned earlier. Indeed, the relatively faster rate of population ageing, which has been accompanied, for many years, by an extreme decline in fertility, should engender more concern in Italy. Though the alarm is raised periodically, it falls on deaf ears and has not made it on to the political agenda. In the same way, the implementation of the Elderly Project-objectives have taken a long time and been inconclusive. On the other hand, Italian scholars thought for many years that Italy’s fertility rate was one of the lowest in the world but now realize that the transition countries of Eastern Europe show much lower ones (Rostgaard 2002). This was a consequence of the severe welfare retrenchment they experienced: another proof, if required, of how social policies affect family behaviour. It is especially mistaken to describe as universally ‘dependent’ a population of people who just happen to have surpassed an age threshold of sixty-five years, which in this day and age is rather young. Doing so underestimates the very important and active role of the ‘young elderly’, who take care of their own grandchildren (though not cohabiting with them) in new ways, or who often take care of the very old, who live alone or in couples.18 Thanks to good health and generous pensions, these ‘new grandparents’ (Attias-Donfut and Segalen 1998) enjoy a new-found relationship with their grandchildren, and represent an important dimension of the changing of family values. Caregiving across generations no longer follows the norms of traditional obligations. Instead, it is newly envisioned in Southern Europe as a relationship that is chosen and experienced individually, according to the trajectory of one’s own biography, with a gradual trend towards the transformation of the patrilinear stem family towards a greater cohesion of relationships in the female line. It is likely that the same change in
Different paths to welfare 193 the vision of the family will take place in Japan (National Institute of Population 2000: 4–6). At different speeds, both Japan and Italy seem to be shifting from family obligations to the gift economy (Izuhara 2000). The differences that exist between Italy and Japan in this area seem more due to the configuration of services available, rather than to how ‘traditional’ mentalities are in each of the two countries. We should not underestimate the warm and important relationship between grandparents and the grandchildren they have cared for over many years. Why should the latter cut off in the future any reciprocal relationship on the grounds of individualistic egoism? Childcare Both countries have experienced a simultaneous mini-revolution in childcare. The history of the construction of north European-style family allowances, that is, of real support for the cost of children, is long and contorted in both countries (see Table 11.1). Japan, despite starting later, has certainly come closer to the north European type. The adjustment of parental leave, which both countries worked on after 2000, is especially striking, as both countries now recognize the rights of fathers to family leave. In response to calls from the UN to strengthen the protection of the rights of children, both Japan and Italy designed a much more coherent and systematic set of services for children, virtually simultaneously. In Japan the Angel Plans of 1994 and 1999 targeted a substantial increase in day care places from 470,000 to 680,000 and a doubling of after school programs for primary schools, as well as a substantial increase in some special services like extended-hours and weekend day centres, temporary childcare support for non-working mothers and several others (Boling 2003: 11 for outcomes, Peng 2000, 2003a). A parallel development has taken place in Italy through Law No. 285/1997, which provides for a system of uniform co-ordination between public and private child care and educational services, as well as a further law in 2000 providing for daycare centres in firms. In brief, both countries favour the development of an articulated set of services tailored to the local level, in a trend towards devolution and a wider welfare mix. The experience of Law 285 is much more radical, however, because it is understood as one of the most extensive grassroots plans ever proposed and funded on this theme. It set in motion a bottom-up process that mobilized social workers, public administrators, social co-operatives, NGOs and even religious organizations in the proposal and implementation of services (by generous public funding), often of very high quality, delivered by qualified people, and tailored to local needs. Funds were also provided for co-ordination, training and refresher courses, with the focus on comparing different implementation processes. The Japanese experience has been ‘top-down’ and often described as a disappointing deferment to local administrations, already overburdened by debts accumulated to implement the Golden Plans (Goodman 2002: 15). Nevertheless, in just a few years Japan managed to achieve a surprisingly high level of childcare coverage. This is especially interesting if you consider that coverage for
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22–25 per cent of all pre-school children is provided almost entirely by public services, and thus does not reflect, as do the corresponding figures of 30 per cent in Scandinavian countries, a significant number of professional childminders or baby-sitters (cf. Peng 2000 for a different evaluation). The latter is another common feature with Italy, where, however, coverage is much lower and diversified by regions. Perhaps the most interesting aspect of this process is that we have before us a genuine shift, a fundamental redesign and re-balancing of the welfare system, shown above all in the amount of public spending devoted to services and other initiatives apart from pensions and health insurance.19 One noteworthy point is the tendency that some authors mention for the differences between pre-school services for 3/6 year olds and childcare for 0/6 year olds to diminish (Peng 2000, 181, Tobin et al. 1989). Previously, these were related to the differences mentioned earlier, between working and stay-at-home mothers, or rather to class differences between well-off housewives and professional women who are the main users of nursery schools (integrating them with other informal caregiving assistance), and middle to lower class women who mainly take advantage of daycare centres (Oishi 2002). It is interesting to note that a similar difference exists in Italy between daycare services (crèches) for 0–3 year olds and nursery school services for 3–6 year olds, though both are considered educational. Instead, the main difference concerns coverage, which is extremely high for 3–6 year olds , but altogether insufficient for infants and very young children. In Italy, daycare services originally designed for working mothers of very young children, which increasingly see themselves as educational services, do not come close to meeting demand,20 and often tend to restrict hours of coverage. Long hours are considered unhealthy for children, and extended services, weekend provision or nocturnal services are simply out of the question, and only seem to show the beginnings of patchy development in private facilities. This configuration of services accounts for the central role of grandparents, who are indispensable to working mothers for filling the gaps related to childcare and almost every other kind of services for children. Italy has the highest percentage of grandmothers taking care of children on a daily basis in Europe (Bettio and Préchal 1998). Although the number of grandparents taking care of their grandchildren is still surprisingly low in Japan (Oishi 2002: 53, table 121), it is not difficult to imagine a similar trend developing. It is as if the shift away from the traditional, cohabiting-but-cold multi-generational family, which is still incomplete, has not yet given rise to the full development of new affective inter-generational relationships.22 Nevertheless, at the moment, it is clear that Japan has been able to fully introduce the issue of reconciliation of work and family into the public debate, by ‘the most potent state attack ever’ on the traditional division of labour (Goodman 2002: 19) oriented towards a more gender-equal society (Peng 2003a, Roberts 2002). In Italy, on the contrary, the choice of developing high quality services for children has actually obscured the issue, leaving it once more to the informal resources of the family. The fragility of Law 285’s tremendous mobilization of the
Different paths to welfare 195 desire to redesign children’s services has become evident following a change in government and the consequent reduction of funding. This weakness is due precisely to the fact that it was not supported at the grassroots level by the women’s movement, as, in contrast, was the case in Japan (Boling 2003: 19, Kohr 1999, Peng 200123).
Conclusions As Abrahamson (2000: 73–75) has wittily pointed out, the discussion on welfare regime typologies has become ‘the welfare modelling business’ par excellence, a debate that teaches us above all that the configuration of the models depends a great deal on the cultural and geographic distance from which one examines policy systems, and also very much on which set of policies one chooses to consider. In any case, one could conclude that formulating a fourth type of welfare regime makes sense if it improves the analysis of the complex relationship between state, market and the informal sector in co-producing social policies, by bringing all the actors of the welfare mix into the equation and, at the same time, allowing for a new gendered point of view. Since the Southern European welfare type is based on the idea that the attributes constitute a ‘middle way’ between corporatist and liberal regimes, I have made a closer comparison between Southern European/Mediterranean countries and Pacific/East Asian countries, using Italy and Japan, respectively, as case studies. Studying these two countries in particular allows us to free ourselves from western (Goodman and Peng 1996), and especially British, assumptions regarding the study of welfare, since both cases are peripheral to the typology. In my opinion, several parallelisms between Italy and Japan suggest that such an approach might be more realistic for understanding real and changing family relationships in Japan and Italy than assuming persistent cultural traditions. More interestingly, one similarity between the two countries is that the state has to learn to really support the family instead of simply transferring care responsibilities to it. From this point of view, introducing care support or care allowances European-style is not compatible with the strong emphasis on family obligations both countries used in the past in order to curtail and means test social entitlement to care services. One can certainly conclude, on the other hand, that Japan is closest to and most coherent with the liberal type of welfare state, because of (1) its capacity to follow through with retrenchment policy, even earlier than other countries (Shinkawa 2003: 3–7), (2) its general tendency to request/favour women’s employment (parttime and low-skilled), and above all (3) its tendency to privilege a reduced and preferably regulatory role for the state in the provision of social welfare. Italy and other Mediterranean countries (except for Portugal perhaps) seem more conditioned by path-dependency and the power of political actors to veto; they do not have the same capacity for radical innovation. When they do attempt change, the entire process appears more fragile and reversible. This leads to a paradoxical situation whereby the reduction in social protection is even less well regulated, to
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the extent that they become almost ‘more liberal than the liberals’ in their outcomes. Countries like Japan find it easier to introduce significant innovations, such as those in the field of care services, which bring the welfare model into balance, thanks to a pragmatism that both avoids ideological traps and supports social movements that can develop welfare provision. Neither of the two groups of countries, however, seem particularly traditional to me, and even less so the so-called Confucian countries. Finally, Japan is actively engaged in a regime transformation from the strong male breadwinner model towards the double carer-adult worker model (Lewis 2001). Nevertheless, our comparison between two possible ‘fourth welfare regimes’ seems to have demonstrated that, if the hypothesis of a fourth way helps us better understand both the clustering of countries, as well as their differences, it is in our interests to follow through with it. The defence of the East Asian Welfare model by Holliday and Gough focuses on the productivist aspect, on functional alternatives to the welfare state but also helps us to understand better the single countries. Here one finds considerable similarity with what has been proposed: the addition of a Mediterranean model. In both cases, the fourth type increases the range of variables considered, adapting the model to cultural variations that simply cannot be accounted for in the three part typology. However, it is not true that the welfare/family nexus of these two-fourth types coincide in their functioning or outcomes: if we limit ourselves to describing them as familialism, we lose sight of the differences, especially those concerning the causes of declining fertility rates or the possibility of introducing a public discourse on the theme of reconciliation between work and family, and an adjustment of the gender contract. Japan and Italy are good examples – for different reasons – of how it is not possible to combine the two dimensions EspingAndersen makes use of, without distinction, as proxies of defamilialization: ‘the male breadwinner bias of social protection’ and ‘the centrality of the family as caregiver’ (Esping-Andersen 1999: 83). It is true that gender inequalities get obscured in this model;24 what is more serious, however, is that we no longer see how the various evolutions of state, market and family connect and fit together. Consequently, we lose the best of what the embedded approach mentioned earlier offers: it allows us to see clearly that neither the state nor the family are the sole welfare providers. The outcome of the embedded approach is a clearer awareness – very near to gender sensitivity – of how necessary it is to ‘mark out’ and map carework wherever performed – in services, in the labour market, in the informal sector, in the welfare society. Only in this way can we really understand how the system works, grasping both its visible and invisible elements. The most valuable insight provided here is that not only the functioning of the market but also the system of income redistribution or the service culture is embedded in fundamental systems of social reciprocity, and is related to the general cultural characteristics, history and ‘civic-mindedness’ of groups in the countries concerned. In this connection, there are several striking similarities in the emerging pluralism of family structures in Japan and Italy: low fertility accompanied by high emotional investment in having children, a low rate of out
Different paths to welfare 197 of wedlock births, belated marriages, strong family solidarity in ‘starting’ the young generation in the best conditions, but also in taking care of frail elderly people on the part of a generation of women ‘in the middle’, heavy investment in home ownership, as a way of establishing family cohesion and solidarity. This cannot be explained by a generically de-institutionalized image of the family nor by a supposed traditional familism: rather a complex chain of conditioned and interconnected choices has to be understood, as well as a complex complementarity of attitudes among generations. For instance, describing Japan’s ‘parasite singles’ or Italian adult-children who never leave home25 simply as selfish free riders underestimates how much their parents’ generation is involved in supporting their choices. This requires a clearer interest in social care-related problems, which connect social policies and complex family behaviours more closely. These are precisely the problems of an ageing society in which the failure to have enough children early enough in life becomes a social problem – the issue so clearly at centre stage in Italy and Japan.
Notes 1 (Esping-Andersen 1990: 50 Table 2.2) constructs a combined decommodification index that locates Italy at more than two points from Germany but less than one point from the United Kingdom. Japan is the second country of this cluster after Italy, the closest to it, but its level of decommodification is more similar to Germany. 2 The Japanese multi-tiered Health System achieved universal coverage much earlier than Italy’s or Southern European National Systems (1961 instead of 1978) and always with a better control of costs (Campbell and Ikegami 1998) 3 It is no mere coincidence that Putnam (1993)’s powerful argument identifying familism as the root cause of Italy’s low level of civic-mindedness is in reference to thirteenth century city–states! 4 Things are completely different in Japan because of a stronger work ethic, but there are some interesting everyday expressions that describe changes in the modern family towards fragmentation and consumerism. For example, career women who prefer luxury consumption to family responsibilities are referred to as ‘parasite singles’ (Yamada 1999, cited in Roberts 2002, 60, Boling 2003: 29–30) and the Japanese, like Italians, bemoan a loss of ‘compulsive solidarity’. What seems equally absurd in both countries, however, is a nostalgia for the mythical family of the past. 5 Cf. Holliday (2000: 711)’s formulation of Japan as a ‘developmental-universalist state within the productivist world’. 6 Traditionally, in Italy too, self-employed categories have their separate funds, but they have been for so long in deficit that in practice they are subsidized by the state budget. 7 A level which had been reached only by Netherlands in 1991, but has been substantially cut afterwards. 8 Although Japan’s unemployment rate remains low, long-term youth unemployment has tended to increase of late, especially among those with low-middle levels of education. This evidently indicates a similar protective function exercised by the family of origin. (Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare 2002a: 34). 9 In the opinion of some scholars, they might even begin to consume their wealth rather than pass it on to their children (Ogawa and Retherford 1997: 90), by making use of the reverse mortgage scheme promoted in 1996. However, such an attitude seems to be limited to the current transitional phase in which resentment for the lost traditional guarantees is still perceived.
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10 Precisely because they made every effort to stay at work when their children were young, whereas their Japanese colleagues exited the labour market, their activity rates begin to drop when the youngest child was over six, while Japanese women go back to work (Sawako 2003, table 4). 11 Most notably, there is less difference in Japan between women’s activity and employment rate than in Italy where many active women are unemployed. 12 That is 6 trillion yen for the first Golden Plan and 5 trillion liras for the first Project objective, except for the fact that Japan is a much more efficient spender. 13 The objectives were quantified more specifically: day centres and home helpers quintupled while short stay centres multiplied from 1,000 to 60,000 (Peng 2003a: 10). 14 This last figure is inverted for Japan: 35.7 per cent of married sons 20.3 per cent of married daughters still following the patrilinear model of co-residence (National Institute of Population 2000: 7). 15 Slightly more according to the two household surveys: from 30.6 per cent in 1993 to 26.2 per cent in 1998 (National Institute of Population 2000: 4). 16 85 per cent if cohabiting in Japan, MHW 1996 cited. in Peng 2003b, n. 9; to be added to another non-cohabiting 6.3 per cent still cared for by family members, referred by Peng 2003a: 217; cf. ISTAT 2001. 17 In Japan the only measure of this kind, except tax deductions and before Golden Plans was the famous campaign for building 4LLDKS houses for three-generation families or loans for ‘adding a room’ for elderly people to existing houses (Campbell 1992: 237–238): cohabitation is somehow defined as a precondition of care for the elderly. 18 Another largely unrecognized and very crucial dynamic, according to our research (Trifiletti et al. 2003). 19 Peng (2003a) refers to a six-fold increase in elderly care expenditures from the 1990s to 2000 and a three-fold increase for families and children: something which changes the traditional underdevelopment of social welfare expenditure. 20 They present increasingly long waiting lists. 21 Although it is higher when the mother is employed, especially if full-time, reproducing the same family investment in the work of young mothers which is common in Italy (cf. Sawako 2003: 5). 22 Perhaps this explains the invention of services such as the ‘service of the hearth’, a sort of ‘rent-a-family’ which would be unthinkable elsewhere (Thang 2002). 23 Although some scholars are more pessimistic about future development (Boling 1998, 2003, Gottfried and O’Reilly 2002). Peng more precisely speaks of a convergence between grassroots movements of carers and a tacit Italian-style strategy of younger women deferring fertility. 24 In the convincing formulation of Gough ‘Welfare regimes ignore or misconstrue 1. Gender relations and 2. The family/household. These criticisms are distinct’ (Gough 2000: 5, our emphasis). 25 But symptoms of a very similar prolongation of adolescence are to be seen in Japan too (Miyamoto 2001, Bettio, Chapter 4, this volume).
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Different paths to welfare 203 —— (2003) ‘Dare un genere all’uomo flessibile: le misurazioni del lavoro femminile nel post-fordismo’, in F. Bimbi (ed.), Differenze e dizeguaglianze. Prospettive per gli studi di genere in Italia, Bologna: Il Mulino, pp. 101–159. Trifiletti, R., Simoni, S. and Pratesi, A. (2003) ‘Care arrangements in double front carer families’. Comparative report, SOCCARE New Kinds of Families. New Kinds of Social Care. Online. Available HTTP: http://www.uta.fi/laitokset/sospol/soccare/reports.htm (Accessed 1 June 2005). Uzuhashi, T. (2001) ‘Japan: bidding farewell to the welfare society’, in P. Alcock, G. Craig and J. Campling (eds), International Social Policy: Welfare Regimes in the Developed World, Houndmills: Palgrave, pp. 109–123. White, G. and Goodman, R. (1998) ‘Welfare orientalism and the search for an East Asian welfare model’, in R. Goodman, G. White and H. Kwon (eds), The East Asian Welfare Model: Welfare Orientalism and the State, London: Routledge, pp. 3–24. Yamada, Masahiro (1996) The Japanese Family in Transition, About Japan Series no. 19, Tokyo: Foreign Press Center.
Index
Note: Page numbers in italics indicate illustrations. Aassve, A. 61, 63, 65, 69 n.8 Abe, M. 39, 82 Abe, N. 103, 104 Abrahamson, P. 195, 198 adoption see ie system adult children living with parents 62, 66 age: distribution of Japan’s population 117; at first marriage and first pregnancy 57; precedence over youth 111; structural shifts 36 ageing 5–6; Japanese society, changing families and policy responses 161; population 4, 10 agriculture, falling rate of employment of 76, 77 Ahn, N. 57 Allison, A. 136 Angel Plans of government 1994, 1999 10, 15 nn.6, 7, 88, 193; Basic Direction for Future Child-rearing Support Measures 132 Anttonen, A. 185 arbeit 81 Arichi, T. 130, 131 Ariès, P. 67; syndrome of ‘child king’ 67 Aronson, R. 76 asset bubble in 1990, bursting of 76 Association for the Advancement of Working Women, survey 84 Association for the Prevention of Child Abuse (APCA) 151 Attias-Donfut, C. 181, 183, 192 Austria 180; housework and care work 66; number of divorces 68 n.4 baby boom, post-war 24 baby-sitters 49
Bacci, M. L. 68 n.1 Banfield, E. C. 181 bank-centred finance 82 Becker, S. O. 65; theory of 57 Befu, H. 180 Belgium: housework and care work 66; number of divorces 68 n.4; proportion of childless women 68 n.2 Bettio, F. 7, 8, 9, 14, 54, 56, 60, 61, 68, 69 n.11, 117, 118, 180, 181, 186, 194, 198 n.25 Bimbi, F. 181 births: cohort size 24; delayed timing with delayed marriage 24–28; life expectancy at 21, 23; rate, decline in 96, 106 n.15, 117, 142; to unmarried mothers in Italy and Japan 163 Blau, F. D. 87 Boling, P. 187, 193, 195, 197 n.4, 198 n.23 Bonifazi, C. 69 n.9 books on language issues 119 boundaries between family and friends 115 Bradshaw, J. 88 Breschi, M. 68 n.1 Brewster, K. 57 Britain see United Kingdom Brown, N. C. 7, 112 bubble economy of late 1980s 113 Buchanan, A. 149 bullying in schools 117 Bunka-cho 110, 120 Burns, C. 152, 154, 155, 157, 158 n.3, 159 n.5 Campbell, J. C. 171, 182, 187, 191, 197 n.2, 198 n.17 cancer 23
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career ambitions 75 caregivers coresiding with frail elderly 29 caregiving across generations 192 Carroll, T. 11–12, 109, 116, 124 n.6; ‘tomodachi-fufu’ (friend-couples) 104 Carter, L. 22 car usage 78 Castles, F. 178, 182 Catholic Church 179 Catholicism 13, 180; familialism 178 Cavalli, A. 61 Centre for Child Abuse Prevention (CCAP) Kodomo no Gyakutai Boshi Centre 151 cerebrovascular disease 23, 24 Chandola, T. 57 Cherlin, A. 61 Cherry, K. 111, 113, 114, 116 Chiisai Nakama 99, 100, 101, 106 n.14 child/children: communicative skills 12; consultation centres, role of jidosodanjo 158; language training and usage 112; mortality, fall in 117; and parents, sharing of tasks between 66; per family, number of 117; protection systems existing in Osaka 148 child abuse 12, 147, 157; debate about 150; ‘discovery’ of 149–152; in Japanese society, legislation 152; in Japan’s child protection facilities 159 n.6 Child Abuse Prevention Law (Jido Gyakutai Boshiho) 149, 155, 156, 157 child care 46; cost at government-licensed centres 88; and elderly care in Italy and Japan 185–195; facilities, inadequate 7; full burden of 8; quality of 88; for working mothers 112 Child Care and Family Care Leave Law 88, 89 Child Care and Family Care Leave Law (Ikuji Kaigo Kyugyo-Ho), revised 105 Child Care Leave Law (Ikuji Kyugyo-Ho) 41, 88, 89, 104, 105; percentage of users in Japan 42; recent survey carried out on male civil servants taking 107 n.20 childlessness: in married couples 39; permanent 57, 59 child rearing: central government promotion of support services 132; effect of changing Japanese families on 130; practices in Japan 120; as socially isolating activity in Japan 129, 144 n.1; social support for 142
Children and Childrearing Support Plan (kodomo, kosodate oen plan) of 2005 10 Child Welfare Law, 1947 149, 157 Chinese culture, old age 162 Cioni, E. 190 Civil Code 116 Clancy, P. 120 Clark, R. L. 27 co-habitation 198 n.16; with in-laws after marriage 44; of young with parents before marriage 9; see also co-residency Coleman, D. 57 Coltrane, S. 103, 106 n.16 communication skills, decline in 122 community support for raising children, development of 131–132 compensation rate of unemployment benefits 183 comprehensive work jobs (sogo shoku) 84 Confucianism 13, 180; countries 196; family model 116; hierarchical view of society 111; model, authoritarian 119; teaching through Japanese social policy 178 conservative corporatist regime 178 contraceptives 7 co-residency (dokyo) 164, 165; children 63 crèche, on-site 11 cross-shareholding between firms 76 Crouch, C. 180 Curtin, S. J. 14 Dalla Zuanna, G. 61 Daly, M. 185, 195 day-care: centres 49; provision of off-site 15 n.6 deaths/dying at home 29, 30 decommodification 178; index, combined 197 n.1 De Jong Gierveld, J. 66 De Laat, J. 57 delayed marriage see marriage Del Boca, D. 57 demographics: ageing 187; ‘crises’ and evolution of new model of family 187–193; indicators for EU countries 58; of Japanese family 19; scenario of EU countries 59; sources of fertility changes in post-war Japan, period parity progression ratios (PPPRs) 24
Index 207 Denmark 174 n.2; housework and care work 66; proportion of childless women 68 n.2; young people still living with parents 61 deregulation in industries 77, 78 Diaz, A. 66 Dienhart, A. 101 divorces 3, 27, 57, 68 n.4; women filing for arbitration 152 Domestic Violence Action and Research Group 152 domestic violence, ‘discovery’ of 152 Domestic Violence Law 153, 154, 157 Donati, P. 61 Donzelot, J. 154 Dore, R. 184 Döring, D. 182 ‘double burden’ endured by working mothers 98 double carer-adult worker model 196 double-income households 105 n.6 Dowd, N. E. 94 dual-household (three-generation) houses, idea of 112 DV see Domestic Violence Law East Asian Welfare model 196 Ebara, Y. 7, 8, 11, 14 ECHP see European Community Household Panel Economic and Social Research Council 175 n.4 Economic Planning Agency 109, 112, 113 educational attainment 86; of women 7, 39 educational level of full-time housewives 44 elderly persons: abandonment of 187; aged sixty and over in selected countries in 2001, living arrangements of 20; care in Italy and Japan 185–195; expectations of receiving care from adult children 173; health and social care needs among 161; post-retirement life in Japan 29; trends in norms and expectations about care in Japan 35 Elderly Project-objectives 192 e-mail, expansion of 119 empathy, culturally valued skills of omoiyari 120 employment, fall in rate of young graduates getting regular 82 Employment Status Survey 79 Engelhardt, H. 57
Equal Employment Opportunity Laws (EEOL) of 1986 and 1999 40, 75, 83, 113; rise in female workers since 166 Ermisch, J. F. 19, 26, 27, 64 Esping-Andersen, G. 4, 65, 177, 183, 196, 197 n.1; model 178; scheme of ‘three worlds of welfare capitalism’ 4; typology of welfare state models 177 EU15 group of nations 54; fertility ranking 55 European Community Household Panel (ECHP) survey 66, 69 n.8 European Fordist countries 180 EU-SILC 69 n.8 Fair, J. K. 121 families/family: as agent of socialization in Japan 157; allowances 193; autonomous production of welfare 177; formation in Japan, legal basis of 9; and households, changing 162–165; identity 5; as income pooling and income insurance agent 67; nuclearization 165; obligation in policy context 165–167; organization in post-war Japan 20; size achievements 25; size, reduction in average 117; standard of living of 75; structures, changing 111–112; support ratio, international comparison of projected 32; versus state- or market-based income insurance 65; welfare provision 13; and work 112–113; work and part-time employment, rates of 80; and workplace, changing relationship between 75; see also Italy, family; Japan, family familism 180; traditional culture of Mediterranean 181 ‘family-as-a-unit’ social security systems 170 ‘family-friendly’ employment practices 10 family-run firm, small, decline in 75–78, 80, 82 farming population, decrease in 130 father/s 97; American ‘everyday fathers’ 103; and child relationships 98, 104 n.5, 118; emergence of nurturing 118; rise in public interest in role of 96; role in child rearing 107 n.19 fatherhood: in contemporary Japan 94; divergent views of 95–97; full-time 101–103
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Federation of Employer’s Associations (Nikkeiren) 104 female see women Fernandez Cordon, N. J. 61 Ferrera, M. 65, 177, 178, 182 fertility: decline in Italy 191; declining rate in Japan 10, 191; and female employment rate in EU countries 55; and female employment, relation between 55; and women’s labour market participation in Europe, Japan and United States 56 Finch, J. 161, 165 Finch, N. 88 Finland 178; housework and care work 66; proportion of childless women 68 n.2; young people still living with parents 61 Fitzpatrick, M. 119 Flaquer, L. 65, 69 n.7 Flath, D. 78 foreign-born population in Japan 14 n.2 Foucault, M. 154 Fox Harding, L. 161 France 178, 191; crude divorce rate 27; housework and care work 66; proportion of childless women 68 n.2 Freeman, R. 68 freeters 81 friend-couple (tomodachi fufu) 12, 115 Fujieda, M. 152 Fukawa, T. 186 Fukushima, M. 3 full-time employment 91 n.1; for new graduates 82 full-time workers 87; singles 47 Gaspar-Pereira, H. M. 153 Gelb, J. 153, 154 Genda, Y. 9, 81, 82 gender: balance in work 12; differences and long family in Italy 66; division of labour 8; effects 65; gap in pay in Japan 85–87; and parental role, rigidity of 67; politics in shared parenting 99–101; roles, changing 121; roles, conventional view of 96; stereotypes, differential status and 115 Gender-Equal Society scheme (Danjo Kyodo Sankaku Shakai) 107 n.24 general work position (ippan shoku) 84, 183 generational contract 165
Germany: average annual overtime hours 91 n.9; decommodification index, combined 197 n.1; housework and care work 66; Long Term Care Insurance plan 180; model country for conservative corporatist type welfare regime 178; model, family carers 173; scheme, qualified insurers 175 n.5; three-generation households 19 Gerson, K. 103 Giannelli, G. C. 64 Ginstrom, R. 122 Gittins, D. 162 Glendinning, C. 180 Godbout, J. 181 Gold/en Plans in Japan (Ten Year Strategy on Health and Welfare for the Elderly) 13, 15 n.6, 166, 167, 168, 193, 198 nn.12, 17; main objectives of Japan’s first 187; see also elderly persons Goldscheider, F. K. 61 Goodman, M. E. 155 Goodman, R. 12, 147, 149, 151, 155, 177, 178, 180, 184, 187, 191, 193, 194, 195 Gori, C. 186 Gottfried, H. 184, 198 n.23 Gough, D. 158 n.3 Gough, I. 183, 196, 198 n.24 Gould, A. 185 government-qualified child minders (hoikushi) 88 grandparents 112, 194 Greece 60; familial support ratio 31; female participation 54; housework and care work 66; welfare provisions and family policy 69 n.7 Guillo, M. D. 66 Hada, A. 152 Hanashiai 119, 120 Hashimoto, A. 164 Hastings, A. H. 144 n.9 Haurin, D. R. 64 Hayashi, F. 164 Hayashi, M. 3, 95, 96 health and social care needs among older people 161 heart disease 23 Hendry, J. 121, 135 Higuchi, Y. 39, 44, 88 hikikomori, phenomenon of 120, 121 Hirai, N. 96 Hirano, T. 170 Hiraoka, K. 168, 169
Index 209 Hirayama, Y. 182 Hiroshima, K. 190 Hodge, W. R. 19, 20, 25 Holliday, I. 183, 196, 197 n.5 home 5, 10; care, provided informally by family members 168; help services 174, 175 n.2; ownership 182 Hong Kong, life expectancy at birth 21 honorific language (keigo) 109–111; decline in use of 121 Hori, M. 110, 115, 116 Hoshi, T. 82 hospitals, types 170 household (setai) 4, 5, 10; method of defining 7; number of persons in 163; type among those aged sixty five and over 164; see also home Houseman, S. 81, 82 housewives, full-time 43, 44, 113; views on marriage and child rearing 47 housework 8, 46 husband/s: traditional words to refer to one’s own 115; violence 152; see also domestic violence, ‘discovery’ of; spouse abuse, effect of new discourses about Iceland, life expectancy at birth 21 Ichioka City 129, 132–142; local government classes for pregnant women 132; local government ‘educational committee’ 137; mother–child group, self-organized 141; mothers at school, education for 137; mothers’ views on socialization process in community 138–141; survey conducted by 144 n.12, 145 n.13 Ida, H. 14 ie system 4, 5, 10, 111, 112; adoption 4; bonds 179; patrilineal 9 ijhi Buddhist social orientation 180 IJUJIREN (Otoko mo Onna mo Ikuji Jikan o Renrakukai) 106 n.8 Ikeda, Y. 150 Ikegami, N. 167, 171, 197 n.2 Illich, I. 154 Imamura, A. E. 3 Inamura, H. 105 n.4 in- and out-group relations 109 income redistribution, system of 196 indirect communication 109–111 individualization, of social rights on family as institution 180 infant and child mortality, falling levels of 7
infanticide 144 nn.7, 8 ‘in-group’ uchi setting of the family 111, 115 Innes, J. 120 Inoue, T. 7, 8, 11, 14 in-patient services at hospitals and clinics 30 Institute for Research on Household Economics, Japan, household survey by 172 Institute of Household Economy 91 n.3 Institute of Labor 40 Institute of Workers’ Evolution 113 institutional care and home care: changing balance between 170; pattern of substitution of 30 institutional features of Japanese economy 76 insurance, long-term care 168–174 intergenerational relationships: development of new affective 194; in Japan 163; support system 20 International Survey of Lifestyles and Attitudes of the Elderly 19 intra-household division of labour 66 ippan shoku jobs see general work position Ireland: housework and care work 66; proportion of childless women 68 n.2 irregular employment 65 Ishibashi, N. 155 Ishii, H. 119 Ishii-Kuntz, M. 106 n.8 Ishizaka, K. 106 n.7 Italy 4, 9, 10, 13, 55, 60, 68 n.3, 195; adult-children, prolonged presence in family home 61, 182, 197; age group 20–34; ageing society 5, 32; characteristics of population in 63; childcare in 193–195; civic-mindedness, low level of 197 n.3; coexistence of very low fertility and low female participation in 67; daycare services (crèches) 194; decommodification index, combined 197 n.1; demographic ‘crises’ and evolution of new model of family 187–193; divorces 27, 68 n.4; doctrine of subsidiarity 179; elderly care in Progetto Obiettivo Anziani of 1985 186; elderly persons 190; Elderly Project Objective 186, 198 n.12; female participation 54; feminism 66; fertility rate, decline in 54, 184, 192;
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future prospects for social care 177; housework and care work 66; IRP survey 66; labour market segmentation 184; Law No. 285/1997 193, 194; National Health System 179; nursery school services 194; old-age care 165; pension system 182; population 31; private savings and wealth accumulation 182; proportion of childless women 68 n.2; secondary labour market generous occupational welfare 185; self-employed categories 197 n.6; and Southern European National Systems 197 n.2; welfare provisions and family policy 69 n.7; welfare system 65; women’s premature exit from labour market 184 Italy, family 54, 105 n.5; demographic behaviour 59; dynamics 118; enterprises run by, concentration of employment in small 76; support ratio 31; see also ‘long family’ phenomenon Italy and Japan: childcare and elderly care 185–195; fertility, timing of fall in 192; grandmothers taking care of children 194; population ageing, timing of 190; similarities in emerging pluralism of family structures in Japan and 196; timing of elderly and child-care measures 186, 188; welfare regime, comparison between Japan and 5, 182–185 Ito, H. 106 n.7 Ito, K. 105 n.3 Iwagami, M. 39 Iwao, S. 113 Iwasawa, M. 39 Izuhara, M. 12, 117, 161, 165, 168, 179, 180, 181, 182, 183, 186, 187, 193 Japan 193; abortion, legalization and provision of 7; affluence, rising levels of 13; age at marriage and proportion never marrying 26; ageing society 19, 35; Angel Plans see Angel Plans of government; birth outside marriage, rates of 3; child abuse see child abuse; child care see child care; cohabitation patterns 6–7; coresidence, changing pattern of home deaths 28–30; declining population and limits to informal support system 30–36; decommodification index, combined 197 n.1; degenerative disease, onset of 23; developmental welfare capitalism
183; divorce rates 3, 27; ‘DV’ see Domestic Violence Law; economic slowdown 3; educational attainment 26, 45; educational levels of women, rising 27; employment concentration in small and family-run enterprises 76; fatherhood, popular discourse on 96–97; feminization of very old population 31; fertility decline 19; firms, valuation of stock market 82; future population ageing process 32; future prospects for social care 177; Health System, multi-tiered 197 n.2; as highly ‘policed’ state 154; hiring practices 84; households, ‘traditional’ three-generation 3; innate social values 150; labour market for youth 51; labour market segmentation 184; language and literature, kokugo 117; legislation to discourage age discrimination 11; life expectancy 6, 21, 22; men of doubleearning households with children 94; mortality rates 5, 23; mother, ‘traditional’ figure of 40–41, 144 n.8; multigenerational coresidence, declining trends in 20; Mutual Aid Associations 182; ‘nuclear’ household 6; old-age care 165; old-age care institutions 13; old-age security 35; one-person households 29; overtime hours, average annual 91 n.9; parasite singles 36, 197; parenting, image of 49–51; pension system 182; population, life cycle pattern of 23; post-war economic miracle 21; social security system 21, 185; social welfare 13; state, family and community, shifts in relationship between 13; state, involved in policing extra-familial institutions 154; state pensions, development of 12; survivorship, increasing 21–24; three-generation households 19; timing of elderly and child-care measures 188; total population 31; unemployment rate 197 n.8; urbanization 26; welfare regime 180, 195; work and child raising, difficulty of balancing 47–49; young urban employees and reference groups, interviews with 42–51; see also Italy and Japan Japan, demographics: ‘crises’ and evolution of new model of family 187–193; decline 191; shifts in 1990s 3; sources of continuous fertility reduction 36; transition 5–10
Index 211 Japan, family 10; boundaries, shifts in 12–13; dynamics 118; effect of economic environment on 76–82; firm run by 76, 90; policies friendly to 185; social security and tax systems based on ‘family-as-a-unit’ 166; and state 12–13; support ratio 31; support ratio by prefecture 33; in threegeneration households 13 Japan, fertility: and family planning, nation-wide surveys concerning 35; ranking 55; rate 3, 5, 7–8, 184; timing of fall in 192 Japan, gender: balance, shifting 10–11; division of work, attitudes concerning 11; roles of husband and wife in 39 Japan, marriage/s: and births, delayed timing of 24–28; and child rearing, perceptions among young men 50; rate, delayed marriages, declining 8–10; universal 31; among women, perception of 45–47; to work 40–41 Japan, women: employment 27; employment activity rates for 184; full-time regular employment before marriage 51; full-time work, effect of rising educational levels on 27; in management 85; married, correlation of part-time work and unpaid family work for 80; married with children, work status of 41; position in firm, efforts to improve 83–87 Japanese National Fertility Surveys (JNFS) 39, 40, 41, 51, 52 n.2 Japanese-style welfare society (Nihongata shakai fukushi shakai) 155, 178, 191 JaSPCAN 157 Jido Gyakutai Boshi Kyokai see Association for the Prevention of Child Abuse jido minseiin system 158 n.11 Jingu, H. 52 nn.2, 4 joint-participation, spirit of kyodo sankaku 107 Jolivet, M. 113, 114, 118, 129, 131 Jones, C. 177 Jorden, E. H. 110 Jurado Guerrero, T. 65 Justice Ministry, survey of domestic abuse 154 Kabaya, H. 124 n.1 Kahn, L. M. 87 Kakuchi, S. 116
Kamidera, H. 96, 105 n.4 Kashiwagi, K. 103 Kashyap, A. 82 katei see home Kattoulas, V. 153 Katz, R. 76 kazoku see families/family keigo see honorific language Kikuchi, Y. 124 n.1 kindergarten 135 Kinsella, S. 121 Kishiwada Child Abuse Incident 147–149, 152, 156, 158 Knijn, T. 180 Kögel, T. 56 Kohr, D. 195 Kojima, H. 27 Kono, M. 191 Kono, S. 183, 184 Korean nationality in Japan, residents with 14 n.1 Koseisho 150 koseki see population, registration system Kosonen, P. 178 Kosugi, R. 184 Koyama, S. 144 n.9 Kozu, J. 153 Kremer, M. 180 Kumagai, F. 152 Kumazawa, M. 170 Kuttner, K. N. 76 Kwon, H. 177, 183 kyodo sankaku see joint-participation, spirit of kyodo sankaku labour: at home, division of 97–99; in Japanese workplace, division of 11; participation of women 68, 89; participation rate of mothers with school children 40 Labour Force Survey 15 n.5, 77, 78, 89, 91 n.2 labour market: and differential employment practices for men and women 118; flexibilization of 184; for new graduates 82; regulations in Japan, flexibility in 183; for youth 75 Land, H. 170 language: between spouses, use of 114; discipline/training/socialization (shitsuke) 122; gender and family relations in Japan, changing 109; usage within family, concerns about changes in 119–123
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Language Section of the Agency for Cultural Affairs 119; annual survey on public attitudes to language 122 Large Store Act 78 Law on Prevention of Spouse Violence and Protection of Victims (Haigusha kara no Boryoku Boshi, Higaisha Hogoho) 152, 155 Law promoting support measures for fostering next generations (Jisedai Ikusei Shien Taisaku Suishin Ho) 105 LDP (Liberal Democratic Party) 179 Lebra, T.S. 110, 111, 113, 114, 115, 116 Lee, H. K. 185 Lee, R. D. 22 Lee-Carter model 22 Leibfried, S. 178 Lesthaeghe, R. 59 Lewis, J. 185, 196 Lewis, L. 154 liberal welfare regime 177 life expectancy at birth 19; for Japanese men and women, projected 23 life-time employment 76 linguistic subordination of wife to husband 111 loan inheritance system over generations 164 local health centres (hokenfu) 150 ‘long family’ phenomenon 61, 67, 182; determinants of 64; inhibiting influence on fertility 68 Long-term Care Insurance Scheme (LTCI) 31, 168, 171, 186; changing family relations under 171–174; objective of ‘equal services for equal needs’ 170 lung cancer 24 Luxembourg, housework and care work 66 McDonald, P. 67 McKie, R. 120 McLaughlin, E. 180 Mainichi Newspapers 21, 35; see also Population Problems Research Council of the Mainichi Newspapers male and female language 109–111; usage 121 male breadwinner measure, classic 184, 196 Management and Coordination Agency 163 managerial posts held by women 7 Mangajin 111
manufacturing, ‘hollowing out’ in Japan 78 marital fertility 36 marital relationship 113–116 marriage: age in Japan 39; arranged 28, 114; and childbirth, delay of 9; delayed 8–10, 24–28, 36, 64, 81; and fertility rates, decline in 81, 163; formed on basis of workplace introductions 81; postponing 65; related value shifts 28; rising opportunity cost of 8 married women living with parents (-in-law), newly 29 Martin, J. 8 Martin, L. G. 23 Martinez-Granado, M. 64 masculinity, notion of 96 Mason, A. 19 Masuda, M. 103, 173 Matanale, P. 82 maternal duties defined by preschool 135–136 Matsubara, M. 89 Matsui, N. 106 n.7 Matsukura, R. 19 Matsumura, N. 130, 144 n.8 Maynard, S. K. 110 medical care services 21; escalating costs for 30 Mediterranean Welfare Model 69 n.7 Meiji Restoration: conceptions of womanhood 144 n.9; neo-Confucian restoration 180; principle of state intervention only in extreme cases 178 men: experiences as full-time fathers 94; involvement in families 104; sharing of general housework 98 Mencarini, L. 59 Men’s Lib movement 96, 105 n.3 metropolitan employees 49 miai system of matchmakers 113 Ministry for Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology 117, 122 Ministry of Health and Welfare 104; report, on decline of birth rate 106 n.15 Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare (MHLW) 95; consensual approach to policy making 90; survey sponsored by 106 n.12 Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communication 2005 113 Mira, P. 57 Mitchell, D. 178
Index 213 Mitsubishi Motors in United States, class action suit against 84 Miyake, Y. 144 n.9 Miyamato, S. 155 Miyamoto, M. 39, 198 n.25 Mizunoya, T. 91 n.9 mobile phones 119 Monfardini, C. 64 Monthly Labour Survey 89 Moreno, L. 178 Morgan, P. S. 190 mortality: child, fall in 117; improvements 21; for men and women, trends in improvement of 22 Mosk, C. 39 mother/s: assignments for 134; and child bonding, encouragement of 133–134; and child, relationship between 12; duty, participation in school activities as 136; goods made by 135–136; involvement in community activities 129; in Japanese suburb, social world of 129; with new-born babies in urban areas 44; raising babies and young children within homes 100; rearing 129; socialization through activities in community 132–142; in urban areas 130; working 7 Motherese 113 motherhood in Japan 131; and gender roles at home 129 multidimensional scaling of EU countries 59, 60, 69 n.5 multi-generational families, decline of 187 Multiscopo Survey 66 Murata, K. 123 Murata, Y. 123 Murdock, G. P. 5 Nagase, N. 7, 8, 39, 41, 44, 52, 64, 65, 104, 112, 118 Nagura, T. 115; data on address terms 114 Nakata, Y. 39 Nakatani, A. 9, 11, 13, 14, 88, 94, 118, 124 n.4, 143 Naldini, M. 65 Namie Amuro 95 national health insurance schemes 167 National Institute of Population and Social Security Research 112, 113, 193, 198 n.14
National Survey on Family Planning 21, 27 Netherlands 6, 178, 197 n.7; housework and care work 66; proportion of childless women 68 n.2; young people still living with parents 61 never-married Japanese in late twenties and thirties, percentage of 40 New Angel Plan 40 ‘new family’, short-lived media phenomenon of 115 new grandparents 192 newly married couples coresiding with parents 28 New-new Angel Plan 40 NHK, national broadcasting organization survey 121 Nihon University Population Research (NUPRI), economic-demographic-social security model developed by 22, 30 Nishi, S. 103 Nitta, M. 78 Niyekawa, A. 124 n.1 Noda, M. 159 n.6 Noguchi, Y. 182 Nolte, S. H. 144 n.9 Nomura, T. 151 Nomura Research Institute 106 n.12 non-married women 50 non-verbal communication, emphasis on 119 Norway, ageing tempo 32 nuclear family 181; rise of 111 NUPRI see Nihon University Population Research nuptial coresidence, main determinant of 20 nurturing fathers 103; emergence of 94 Oberländer, C. 179 Ochai, E. 3, 9, 11, 12, 111, 112, 115, 116, 117, 179 OECD countries: ageing society 5; hours of work 89, 91 n.9; Japan joining 21; Labour Force Statistics 56; percentage of population over 65 6 Ogasawara, Y. 167 Ogawa, N. 8, 19, 20, 21, 22, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 30, 31, 36, 61, 64, 65, 68, 104, 112, 117, 167, 181, 187, 197 n.9 Oguro, K. 103 Ohinata, M. 131, 150 oil crisis 36 Oishi, A. S. 184, 194
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Index
old age: care insurance 13; definitions and misconceptions 162; pensions 182 ‘one name’ as symbolic of family unity 116 one-parent households 57 Ono, H. 11, 39, 87 O’ Reilly, J. 184, 198 n.23 Osaka: child abuse telephone counseling services 151; see also Kishiwada Child Abuse Incident Osawa, M. 11, 81, 82, 166, 170 Ota, M. 102, 103, 106 n.7 outside, out-group, soto 115 overtime work and day care 49 ownership of automobiles 78 Ozawa, M. N. 183, 184 Ozu, Y. 111 Palomba, R. 67 parasite singles 9, 27, 197 n.4 parental leave, adjustment of 193 parent–child and sibling relationships 116–119 part-time employment 75, 81, 87; in Japan, growth of 78–81; among youth 81 Passin, H. 117 paternal involvement in child raising see fathers Patrick, H. T. 76 patrilinear model of co-residence 198 n.14 patrilinear stem family, transformation of 192 pay levels 75 Peng, I. 166, 167, 187, 191, 193, 194, 195, 198 nn.13, 16, 19, 200 pension expenditure 161 period parity progression ratios in Japan, trends in 25 Pfau-Effinger, B. 181 Plan for Gender Equality 2000 (Danjo Kyodo Sankaku 2000-nen Plan), 1997 157 Plant, R. 172 Plantenga, J. 68, 69 n.11 Plus One Proposal 40 police: domestic disputes 155; involvement in child abuse cases 156; seikatsu anzenka (life safety section) 155 policing: family 154–158; of Japanese family 147 Popenoe, D. 59
population: age distributions 19; ageing, international comparison of speed of 34; ageing, tempo of Japan 32; percentage over age 65 in selected OECD countries 6; registration system 5; timing of ageing in Italy and Japan 190 Population Census, 1960 144 n.5 Population Problems Research Council of the Mainichi Newspapers 27, 28, 35 Population Research Institute (PRI) 63 Porter, M. E. 76 Portugal 60, 191, 195; housework and care work 66; proportion of childless women 68 n.2; welfare provisions and family policy 69 n.7 Préchal, S. 186, 194 pregnancy: classes for women 131; prior to marriage 52 n.1 preschools 135; population 88 Prime Minister’s Office (now Cabinet Office), public opinion surveys on various aspects of gender equity 97 Pruett, K. D. 94 PTA (Parents and Teachers Association) 136 public day nurseries 145 n.16; of Ichioka City 136 Public Housing Corporation 130 public–private divide in care delivery 168 public welfare services 168 Putnam, R. D. 197 n.3 Radford, L. 153 Rake, K. 186 Rebick, M. E. 3, 7, 8, 9, 11, 14 n.3, 61, 65, 75, 76, 81, 85, 86, 87, 91 nn.2, 7, 104, 183 recession: of 1990s 9; effect on families 76; in Japan’s economy 105 regional child-rearing support centres (Chiiki kosodate shien senta) 132 registered carers 173 relationships within family 116 Retherford, R. D. 8, 19, 20, 24, 26, 27, 28, 30, 31, 36, 167, 181, 187, 197 n.9 Rindfuss, L. 57 Roberts, G. S. 12, 179, 186, 187, 194, 197 n.4 Rohlen, T. P. 76 Rostgaard, T. 192 Ruiz-Castillo, J. 64
Index 215 Sam campaign 179 Samuelson, R. J. 185 ‘samuraization’ of Japanese development 180 san-ko (‘three highs’) 114 san-ryo (‘three goods’) 114 Saraceno, C. 183 sarariiman of Japan 118 Sasagawa, A. 12, 13, 100, 129 Sato, H. 11 Sawako, S. 198 nn.10, 21 Scabini, E. 61 Schettkat, R. 68 Schiffman, S. S. 69 n.5 Schmidt, L. 61 school social life and adolescent psychology 117 Second World War, defeat in the 3 Segalen, M. 192 self-employment and family work, decline in 76, 77 Seltman, R. L. 121 senior–junior relations and honorific language 117 senmon gakko (technical training schools) 14 n.4 service culture 196 setai see household Sevenhuijsen, S. 157 Sevilla-Sanz, A. 57 sexual harassment (seku hara) 83; and EFOL 83–84; legislation, development of 87 sexual mortality differentials at higher ages 31 Shinkawa, T. 187, 195 Shiokura, Y. 121 Shoji Tsuchida 102 shujin or danna (master) 115 sibling relationships 117 silence as means of expressing defiance or passive resistance in Japan 121 single-income households 105 n.6 single parent: families 122; household 69 n.6 single women 39; living with parents 44 singulate mean age at marriage (SMAM) 25, 26 Sipilä, J. 195, 198 Smith, J. S. 113 smoking 24 social care-related problems 197 ‘social contract’, introduction of new 168–174
Social Democratic welfare regime 177 social hospitalization 167, 170, 187 social insurance: model to finance long-term care 168; schemes of health and pensions ‘for all citizens’ 166 social policy agenda, changes in 167 social reciprocity, fundamental systems of 196 social welfare corporation, shakai fukushi hojin 168 sociolinguistic usage of relevance 111 sogo shoku see comprehensive work jobs son-in-law, adopted, mukoyoshi 116 Sorenson, S. B. 153 Sorvillo, M. P. 68 n.2 Southern Europe 13; Model of 69 n.7 Spain 60; female participation 54; housework and care work 66; proportion of childless women 68 n.2; welfare provisions and family policy 69 n.7 specialized training schools (senmon gakko) 86 spoken skills in children, deterioration of 119 spouse abuse, effect of new discourses about 157 stakeholder capitalism, Japanese form of 76 state-based welfare 179 Statler, O. 111 stem family see ie system subsidiarity, doctrine of 178 Sugito, S. 117 Survey of Women’s Employment Management 88 Survey on Women’s Work and Family Life 40, 41 Sweden 57; ageing tempo 32; crude divorce rate 27; number of divorces 68 n.4; proportion of childless women 68 n.2; three-generation households 19; young people still living with parents 61 Tajiri, K. 106 n.7 Takahashi, H. 36, 96, 118 Takahashi, S. 52 n.2 Takeda, K. 144 n.9 Takeishi, U. 89 Takenaka, A. 3, 61 Takeuchi, H. 76 Tanturri, M. L. 59 tax breaks for intergenerational living 164
216
Index
teenage prostitution 155 television talk shows and advertisements, language of Japanese 123 Terra Abrami, V. 68 n.2 Thang, L. L. 185, 198 n.22 Thranhardt, A. M. 178, 180 three-generation families 198 n.17; change in composition of 112; in Japan, decline of 190 three-regime model, ‘classic’ 178 Tobin, J. J. 194 Tokyo: child abuse telephone counseling service 151; interviews with young urban employees in 42–51; Ishihara Shintaro, governor 158 Tokyo Line 151 Tokyo Story 111 Tomita, K. 84 Tonippo 16 Tosi, A. 120 total fertility rate (TFR) 24 Trade Union Confederation (Rengo) 104 Trifiletti, R. 9, 13, 65, 69 n.7, 105 n.5, 165, 177, 181, 184, 190, 191, 198 n.18 Tsumura, A. 5 Tsuri-Baka Nisshi 111 Tsutsumi, K. 153 two-child families 25 two-generation housing loan 164 Ueno, C. 5, 130 Ueno, K. 151 UN see United Nations unemployment: rates 9; of young people, long-term 182 UNESCAP (UN Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific) 112 United Kingdom 57, 88; approach of separating costs of accommodation and living costs 170; assumptions regarding study of welfare 195; average annual overtime hours 91 n.9; Basic Skills Agency 120; decommodification index, combined 197 n.1; Department of Work and Pensions, study for 88; housework and care work 66; proportion of childless women 68 n.2; young people still living with their parents 61 United Nations: Convention on the Rights of the Child 151; International Decade for Women 83; population projections, 2002 30, 31, 32; World
Conference on Women in Beijing 152 United States 88; average annual overtime hours 91 n.9; three-generation households 19 universalism of social rights 177 universal marriage in Japan 20, 24, 28, 31 urbanization and child-rearing 130 Uzuhashi, Takafumi, K. 183 Vancouver, arrest of Japanese Counsel for domestic violence 153 Villa, P. 56, 60, 61, 181 Vogel, E. F. 130, 150 voluntary children’s rights group 155 voluntary organizations in Britain 168 Voss, J. 38, 118 Wagatsuma, H. 105 n.4, 150 Wage Census 14 n.2, 86 Wakita, Y. 102, 103, 106 n.7 Weathers, C. 90 ‘Welcome Baby Campaign’ of 1992 10 welfare: production of family transformations 177; programmes 166; provisions and gender roles 64; regime, fourth 196; regimes of Japan and Italy 177; services and facilities, access to 168–169; system, fundamental redesign and re-balancing of 194 Wells, A. 120 Wetzel, P. 124 n.1 White, G. 177 White, M. I. 3, 104 n.5, 116, 117, 118 wild hospital discharges 186 Wilson, G. 162 withdrawal and silence 120 Wolff, L. 91 n.5 women: average educational levels 113; burden in child birth, child rearing and housework, need to reduce 104; difficulty balancing career with family 8; educational levels 113; expectations of prospective marriage patterns 9; family workers among employed married 80; filing for divorce arbitration 152; full-time employees 44; greater cohesion of relationships in line 192; labour force participation rate of 11; language usage 121; managers 87; participation or female employment 54; part-time workers 11; postnuptial coresidence, for young Japanese 20; of samurai upper classes 112;
Index 217 women (Continued) traditional role of 46; victims of domestic violence, measures to support 157; working patterns for 112 workers: part-time 43; university-educated 85 work–life balance, efforts to improve 87–89 workplace changes and impact on family 75 World Conference on Women and The Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination against Women, adopted by UN General Assembly 107 n.24 Yamada, M. 9, 39, 82, 118, 190, 197 n.4 Yamamoto, C. 27 Yamamura, Y. 131
Yashiro, N. 39 Yazawa, S. 143 Yoshida, M. 102, 103, 114 Yoshida, Y. 104 Yoshihama, M. 152 Yoshikawa, H. 76 young elderly 192 young people: entrants into labour market 65; men holding full-time regular employment 81; mothers with first child under six in Tokyo and non-metropolitan areas 52 n.3; one-person households 69 n.6 youth: attitudes towards marriage and child rearing 39, 40; increase of part-time work among 81; in Japan, changing nature of partnerships among 39 Yuzawa, Y. 8, 14
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